One. Week. To. Go.

I can't believe it.  One week from right now, I'll be on the bike course, and on my way to finishing my 1st Half Ironman race!  This past week was a my first of two taper weeks.  I feel good.  I feel ready.  Did my last 'long' run yesterday, and it went well. Today, I'm going out to do an open water swim in my wetsuit to get reacclimated with it, so I don't have a "freak out" episode like I did during the swim in the Kemah triathlon in April.  And then next week, every workout consists of a swim, bike and run.  Nothing more like getting me in the mood, than to do little mini triathlons the week of my big race!
Today's motivation:

Trial Bike Ride

This weekend I did a trial bike ride on the Oilman Texas race route up in Conroe.  I was a bit nervous about this ride since it is quite a bit more hilly than anything I've rode on before.  Yes, those spin classes I take help somewhat, but nothing compares to the real thing.  Thankfully, three guys from work offered to do the ride with me, so if I couldn't make it up one of the hills, at least I'd have someone able to go get the car for me.  :) 

Actually, the ride turned out pretty good.  It indeed was very hilly, and the most difficult bike ride I've ever done, but I made it.  And the good news, I still had some fuel in the tank when I was done, so running 13.1 miles afterwards could very well be doable, although it may involve some walking.  Although, by the end of the ride, my quads were on fire.  Those hills just did them in.  We did stop along the way and rested and had our nutrition, which I'm thinking I just may do in the race as well.  The route was actually pretty beautiful, and at one point, it didn't even feel as though I was in Texas.  Six miles into the route, we encountered the roughest road I've ever rode on.  I literally thought my bike, and myself for that matter, may not make it if the whole 56 miles were like this.  Thankfully at mile 17, it was done.  Turns out after to talking a girl after we were done who also just rode, said that pavement was not there 2 weeks ago.  I wonder if the race folks knew that was happening.  I guarantee there will be ALOT of complaints about it. 

All in all, I am very happy I decided to do the trial ride.  Now I know what to expect on raceday.  Only two weeks to go...I can't believe its almost here...

Last big training week...then let the taper begin...

To start off my last big training week, what did I get to do?  Nothing.  Off day.  Yippee!  Just because its a nice rest from my 50 mile training ride I did yesterday morning.  My longest ride to date.  I felt pretty good, a bit windy at times, but nothing like my 40miler I had a few weeks ago.  I did stop 3 times to give my legs a few minutes rest, which really helped.  I'm debating whether I should do this in the race or not.  Since my goal is to basically finish the race, I'm not to concerned with my bike time, and I want to make sure my legs are up for a 13.1 mile run afterwards.  This time last week, my right hamstring was bothering me, which began hurting after my USA 10 Miler race.  My workouts last week were impaired from my hurting hamstring, enough I decided to go see my awesome sports chiropractor.  Since then, its feeling much better, and I barely felt it on my ride. 

As for the USA 10 Miler race last Sunday, it went well.  My total time was 1:47.  For the first 5 miles, I paced myself with a girl running just ahead of me (seen in a pic below), then a friend of mine who is training for the NYC Marathon caught up with me and we ran the rest of the race together.  It was pretty humid, and actually started sprinkling on us for the last 4 miles.  Then, literally ~30 seconds after I crossed the finish line, it began to pour.  Thank goodness I was done! 



So I'm already looking ahead to this weekend.  I'll be heading up to Conroe with a few friends to ride the race route so I can get familiar with it.  Its supposed to be hilly, so we'll see how it goes. Below is the elevation chart for the route.  I'm used to riding on pretty much a straight line graph.

    

28 Days.

I'm less than one month away.  I can't believe race day is almost here.  Now the mental part begins...I can do this.  I will do this.

Alittle motivatin always helps...  

The Non-Injury Injury & Exploring New Territory

The last two weeks have been somewhat eventful.  The weekend before last, I was on a normal bike ride with my friend Melissa, when while riding (and clipped in my pedals) I slightly torqued my ankle and suddenly felt a shooting pain within.  I was only able to complete 13 miles (thank goodness I got a run in beforehand) due to the pain.  Afterwards I iced it, but there really wasn't any swelling or pain to the touch.  I would just get shots of serious pain when I extended my foot from the neutral position.  I was perplexed at what it could be.  So, the next Monday I was able to go see my chiropractor (best chiropractor ever!) and she informed me I had a nerve issue inside my ankle that just got irritated due to the motion I do when clipping in and out of my pedals. Basically, I was not injured, even though I had been in great pain.  Nerve issues will do that to you I guess.  She did some work, actually twice that week, and then after a short swim and 3 mile run with very little pain, I knew I was going to be ok.  Bad part of it all, all this was happening during a very hard training week.  After looking over my training plan, I decided to swap my Recovery Week (which originally was this week) with last weeks hard week with a little tweaking.  So, as of yesterday, I'm back on track.

After basically a week off from training, I was a little worried about my long ride yesterday.  I was supposed to do a 2.5 hour bike ride and 20 min run.  This would be the longest and farthest I've ever been on my bike.  So I decided to make the best of it and do a new route and go exploring in new territory.  It turned out to be a great, but windy 40 mile bike ride.  At one point, I felt the wind actually try to pick up my front tire, so I had to stay in aero position just to keep my bike on the ground.  A little scary, but since I was crawling along at 13 mph, if I fell, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have hurt that bad!  I finished strong, with no ankle pain. I then grabbed Lola and we headed out for a 30 minute walk/run.

Today's new territory was in the pool.  This long swim workout was 6 x 500 yards.  Total of 3000 yards or 1.7 miles. That is certainly the longest swim workout I've done ever.  And it felt great.  No ankle pain. 

In other news, I've signed up for the USA 10 Miler, this upcoming Sunday.  I've done this race before, during my marathon training in 2009.  Its a fun race, which gives THE best tech race shirt ever!  The longest I've done so far in my training has been about 8 miles, and that was a few weeks ago, so this race should be interesting.  I'm not really thinking of it as a race, but just as my long run workout.  I'm sure when I wake up this Sunday on raceday I'll be thinking this: