Never-the-less, I was probably a little over optimistic (over enthusiastic?) when I put together my race calendar. After my experience in the swim at White Lake and chatting with The Puppeteer I have decided that I have bitten off more than I can chew by signing-up for Beach-to-Battleship in Wilmington in October. No particular concerns about the bike or the run, but I just don't think that I will do myself credit in the swim and if I can't do it "properly" I'd rather wait until next year. I'm in no danger of drowning and I can almost certainly finish the prescribed 1.2 mile swim, but I can't pull together a decent freestyle for the distance and I certainly won't be fast!
Along with this realisation I have also decided that working hard on "base fitness" is far more important than finishing races (especially if I'm "just finishing" rather than trying to be competitive in my age group). I think that I've already come a long way, but finishing this season and having a good winter (and, perhaps, losing another 10 lbs) should really set me up for next year.
My run is definitely getting faster and I'm happy to be injury free and enjoying it.
I'm very excited about the bike and can feel significant improvement now that I've attained some base fitness - I seem to fly up hills that I struggled on just a few months back! This is the discipline that I know I can shave some serious time from.
My swim is where I'm struggling. My technique is (I think) improving dramatically and I have started to fly over shorter distances, but I'm still struggling with stamina and keeping it going over long distances. That said, I can feel things improving and I'm determined to work hard on this for the remainder of this year!
So...... I'm making some changes to my race calendar.......
I didn't do Bandits Challenge last weekend (a good call I think!)
I will do the Triangle Sprint in July
I am still signed-up for the Lake Logan Olympic in August, but I'm reserving the right to change it to the sprint if necessary.
I will do the OBX Olympic in September, swim allowing.
The plan is now to convert my B2B registration to a relay - possibly with The Snitch swimming and The Puppeteer running with me biking in the middle?
I will now add the OBX Half Marathon in November with the aim of anihalating the 2:00 barrier!
An interesting part of this whole thing is that after six months of working with The Puppeteer I now have a much better idea of "what it takes" and I'm in awe of some of the other athletes she works with. Not only that, but "the journey" has become much more important to me than "just finishing races". It's a great challenge and I'm going to do it properly and without rushing things - watch this space!
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| Swim |
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| Bike |
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| Run..... |
Glad to hear that you are enjoying the journey. And for the record...I've never seen you in any those three positions in a race!
ReplyDeleteBut the first picture was close! :-)
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