And then taper again

Taper week leading into Grand Rapids 70.3/Athena Nationals. I love the Grand Rapids tri and the fact that it is the Athena/Clydesdale National Championship just makes it that much more awesome. For those who are unfamiliar, Athenas are female triathletes over 165 pounds and Clydesdales are male triathletes over 220 pounds. The national championship is an "open" championship, meaning you don't need to qualify in a prior race to compete. I raced the 70.3 (half Iron) distance of 1.2 miles, 56 miles, and 13.1 miles...but that will be in my race report.

Monday - 2,700 yard swim.

Tuesday - 5 mile moderate run just under 55 minutes, which used to be a super fast run for me. My heart rate averaged 152 and I was aiming for between 150 and 155, so this was great.

Wednesday - Global Running Day 3.61 miles at Runners Forum sponsored by 361 Degrees. Fun run and I participated in the runner storytelling for the Running on Indy podcast afterwards.

Thursday - 2,450 yard swim (Wednesday's swim) and 14.8 mile bike ride. Nothing challenging.

Friday - Quick swim ladder, 800 yards and out.

Saturday - quick bike check/shakeout before hearing to Grand Rapids. 8.4 miles easy riding.

Sunday - RACE DAY!!!

Comments

Iron Rose 2020

Some race reports are easier to write than others. Some take a while to process everything that happened. On September 26 th I set out to do my own full Ironman distance triathlon (2.4 miles swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run). When coach at I first started talking about it we talked about maybe as a one day effort (race format) or three days (like some of the virtual options have been). My last big training weekend (biking 100 on Saturday, running 20 on Sunday, and swimming 2.2 miles open water on Monday) confirmed that I needed to shoot for single day because I had come so close to the three day in training. So we were full steam ahead with the plan already in motion. I had planned routes, marked my bike course, secured volunteers for aid stations (amazing people all around), dropped off aid bags…finished training and tapered. Race morning Trena arrived at my house early and we headed over to Andy’s for the swim. Trena and Jen were doing safety kayaking for me. Andy and Anna wer

Vision 2020

I'm a planner. And a dork. And I wrote a lot of Vision 2020 plans around 2000 so now that it is 2020 everything feels weird. Ok, that's out of my system. Let's talk about 2020. I've already done a self-assessment of last year and met with coach to plan 2020. Everything is focused on Ironman Wisconsin on September 13.The milestones have been set, but there will be some infill along the way. Milestone 1: Carmel Marathon - I did a spring marathon (also Carmel) in 2018 ahead of Louisville and it seemed like a good idea to do that again. So for the 10th Carmel Marathon I am running the full. Spring marathons feel undertrained compared to fall because the time between recovering from fall and getting ramped up to multiple 20 mile training runs is not there. I take the spring effort as a see what happens sort of race. Must finish to keep the streak alive, but I will see how everything else unfolds. Milestone 2: TourdeLou - not so much of a race as a supported event ride

Block 3: Race Withdraw is Real

Early in this block I was pretty pissed that some people who don't train (much) were going out and racing better than what be PR for me. I have NO problem with people being faster than me (most are), as long as they put in the work. But without work it just makes me upset. And especially if they then bemoan how "slow" it was. I wanted to race out of spite. But I didn't get to. I've had some strong swims, and one complete disaster. But I mostly shook off the disaster and moved on. This block was all bike trainer for cycling. I did one of the workouts at the Loft while the class was doing something else. I will do this for some of the weekday rides just so that there are other people around. One of the things Coach Matt is doing is noting when I last did a workout so I can see how change is happening. It seems I am doing better each time I do a workout, so that's good. It will be nice to get outside (which should be tomorrow). Running has been s

My First Marathon (x2)

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