Thursday, June 01, 2006

lambda = c/f

Here are some quick notes from the last few days.

Seven years after I did my first tri, today I finally became a member of USA Triathlon. Yeah!!!

Got in some hill repeats on the bike today too. 6x4:00 minute climbs. I did an okay job of keeping my butt planted in the saddle while I climbed, but need to keep working on that. Out of the six climbs, I could only stay in the saddle for the full 4:00 minutes on two of them.

Yesterday I was able to jump in an inland lake for some open water swimming. And I didn't even need a wetsuit. Took a few strokes to get used to not swimming with a straight black line below me. Too bad we are restricted to swimming in a 100 yard strip. Hopefully they can get some more guards and open up more of the lake.

Really fried my shoulders on Saturday, literally. They are peeling like crazy now.

So the meat of tonight's post is my conversation with my coach. Last week I had a good talk with him, did some homework (i.e. look at my schedule), and reported back to him tonight. We are on the same wavelength on a lot of things. For the most part, as long as I can give a logical and rational explanation for deviating from his plan, he is okay to go along with it. Unfortunately I am still under a yellow flag from my cardiologist, but I am continuing to train for this little race in September. I'm not going too far into Zone 4 and should avoid Zone 5 heart rates for precautionary measures. This is hard to do, especially on hill climbs. This certainly is not an ideal situation, but I can still get prepared. So what's on tap for me the next few weeks?

- Bike, bike, and bike some more. Four hours at the gym, ppffff. I will be ramping up to seven or eight hours on the bike.
- Riding the IM WI course next Friday!!! My coach is encouraging me to put in a good Zone 3 effort. I won't do the whole 112, but probably 70 plus miles. Maybe there will be some good photo opportunites along the way. Can't wait to see how over hyped the hills are.
- Since I have never done a half IM, got to get one of those in too.
- Try a few open water races. There are some swims appropriately named COWS that I can do.
- Squeeze in some races to mentally train for the morning of September 10. Don't want to be too jittery.
- Just run - and stay healthy on those runs.

I'll be signing up for some races soon so look for the subtle changes on my sidebars in the near future.

PS - The science geek in me trumped the tri geek and came up with the title today.

9 comments:

Habeela said...

That's a big list of things to do in the next few weeks. Rock on though!

Janet Edwards said...

Wow, sounds like you will be busy!

I would think that with the Wednesday hills you have been riding, you should be in fine shape for WI hyped hills.

Jodi said...

Are you familiar with the Madison area? If not, let me know. I spent 4 years finding the best bars and breweries in town.

tsk, tsk... Where was your spf50?

Papa Louie said...

Are you riding with us Sunday in the CVNRA?

Cliff said...

Riding will be good. I am resting my knees the whole week. This weekend packed with riding and swim.

BuckeyeRunner said...

Good grief. 7 or eight hours on the bike?? Unbelieveable. How exciting that you are checking out the IM course! The way you are training, the "hills" are sure to be overhyped.

Those COWS swims sound really cool. I would like to try one of those. I think I am doing the Lake Erie one in July. I will see if I can fit in one of those Columbus ones. Thanks for the link!

Rachel said...

I love Madison! That's awesome about being able to swim in the water without a wetsuit. Very ambitious goals. By the way, you are SO overprepared. I think your 1st H-IM will be EASY for you.

Trifrog said...

I thought the lambda was a reference to Revenge of the Nerds ;)

I'm honored to be able to ride with you on your journey toward IronMoo.

E-Speed said...

Happy Birthday!