Today was the kick off of the Triathlon Season in San Diego with the Spring Sprint! I am finishing 2 big weeks of training and yesterday was a sh&t show, My HRV this AM was 7.7 " within your normal values and your subjective scores are trending positively. Proceed as planned"
My Training Peaks looks like this- and I was feeling tired. But my plan was warm up, go hard and see what happens. With very little on the line at the local race, let's just see. My warm-up run was painful. Ok, its go time, well not really, see I was wave #15 of 15, they put the 50 + women DFL, keep the slow ass people in the back, I suppose. The 50+ men were in front of us. Short swim- 500 yards, I had 100 yards of open swimming before catching the wave ahead and slamming into a guys head who was doing elementary backstroke going the wrong way, going to be a long day for that dude.
Out fast and up the ramp. Quick transition. The bike was 10 miles and had 12 turns with 4 of them 180-degree turns. This course has been dangerous but the widened the lanes and the marking of the crater-like potholes it was not too bad. And with 90% of the people actually riding on the right side, it was easy to maneuver as needed. My legs hurt, no question, but the power was there so I kept the pressure on. Whenever it started to feel better I kicked it up a bit. Rode at 98% for 28 minutes, AV HR 160, so I was working. So much that I was only able to take 4 sips of Gatorade Endurance and no more. Something about redlining feeling that does not allow for caloric consumption. 
Onto the run and I went out hard without looking at my pace and had the same approach as the bike, keep the throttle down and suffer. I was running well, but fck it hurt. Hard to the finish line, which was 3.23 miles- really people, how hard is it to make it 3.1 miles NOT 3.23. But I digress- sub 7:00 pace and I am super happy! 
If I had let my head dictate the day, who knows how the race would have come around- instead I just went for it, did not look at number or paces- just hurt as much as possible, which is 100% doable for 59 minutes!
The effort was enough for the OA Win, which I am humbled, to accept!
The day was fun with my athletes Kasey, Alexis, Alexis, Gail and Stacy on the course getting it done! Add my teammate Liz and a bunch of local friends and it's what I just love about this sports....friends, suffering, sunshine and so many medals!
I encourage everyone to do a few Sprints- don't think, just get out there an go hard! It's hard to screw up pacing on a Sprint.
Racing for an hour on 4 sips of Gatorade is 100% doable! Breakfast of Kona Red , 2 cups white rice with coconut oil + salt and a GoGo Applesauce pre-swim!
Congratulations and your so amazing. Thanks for keeping it fun and real
ReplyDelete