Mid-Year Update

I’m really getting kind of lackadaisical with my blogging. You know what they say; the older you get the faster time seems to pass. Well, if it goes much faster I might fall off this ride 🙂

Since my last post back in February, eight events have come and gone. With only one other event on the schedule between now and September, wow, it really has been a crazy year.

To try to get you up to speed without melting your brain with the gory details, my racing has been average. And I’m really okay with it. To some extent I have put the blinders on and my focus remains on the triathlon in Madison on September 8th. But at the same time I have noticed that my intensity on race day has changed. Not to say that I don’t put out my best effort, but I’m less willing to push to the point of failure. It seems I was more willing to do that in the past. You know, the ‘Go Big or Go Home’ mentality. I might be justifying a little here but I think I paid for that in the past with longer recovery times and more injuries.

My recovery rate has been phenomenal this year, and I attribute that to my change in diet and to my ‘keep it under control’ B and C race day efforts. Although, even as I write this, I wonder if this is my own self-justification oozing out. Let me give you a couple of examples:

Last year following the Chippewa 50K I literally could not walk until Thursday the following week.

The race was on Saturday so that was four (4) days where I could not train, seriously, I could barely walk. This year I road the Minnesota Ironman bike ride (70 Miles) the following day and additionally had a normal training week following the event. This has held true with every event this year, including Grandma’s and the 50K at Afton.

Besides the quicker recoveries; another highlight this year has to be the 50K at Afton. Yes it was a ATR PR by 20+ minutes. It was not a 50K PR but it was competitive with my best 50K. This I contribute primarily to executing my plan on race day. It was probably the first time that I actually stuck with me pre-race plan on race day. It’s kind of sad, but up until this race it seems I put together a plan and then race day comes and I do something completely different. It has to be an adrenaline thing with me. But; anyway, this year I had a plan and I stuck to the plan most of the day. I only swayed from the plan due to the weather (90F, I think my head was baked by then) with just about 3 miles left. And additionally I had a normal training week following (so far at least, the race was this past Saturday).

So what’s up next?

The Minnetonka 5-Mile Challenge. A 5-mile swim from Excelsior Beach to Wayzata Beach across Lake Minnetonka. I’m excited about this one but a little worried as well. Each swimmer for this event has a support boat and we have signed up as a family. My daughter (Alexandra) and I are swimming and my son (Christopher) and daughter-in law (Elisabeth) are operating the support boats. My worry comes with Alexandra, not about her swimming the 5 miles but about the weeds; she is freaked by weeds, really freaked by them. So I’m worried about how this will affect her if there are a lot of weeds. This is the first time we have done the event but I’ve heard from others that it can be weedy, especially towards the end of the swim. So I ask that you say a little prayer and keep her in your thoughts on Saturday, July 27th, that weeds or no weeds she has fun!