Taper

Well I have to say that this weekend has been just some great weather. I was on my bike both Sat. and Sun by 6:30. Just nice easy 2 hour rides. They were great. I just got to really enjoy the rides. It was very relaxing. This year I have been doing most of my training rides on my road bike. Really the only time I get on my tri bike is for races and focused long solo efforts. Might be paying off, might not. I will let you know about that one.

Recently made some cool upgrades to my tri setup lately. I put ceramic bearings in all my race wheels, upgraded to ZG brake calipers, new brake levers, and put easton attack aerobars on to replace my profile carbon x bars. She is looking pretty sweet. I almost dropped a whole pound by switching aerobars. Enough of all the bike geek talk. lol I guess had some time to babble today.

Anyway, got a nice run in late in the day, in hopes of getting some heat. It was about 82 when I started. It felt good. Still nothing like what I expect to see in St. Croix, but oh well everyone has to deal with it. Hopefully I can deal with it just alittle better than most. In my opinion the best way to deal with heat is to be as lean and light as possible. By the time the race rolls around I should be at my target weight of 155. I am going to try to maintain that this year, and hopefully convert this to be my natural weight over the next couple years. It takes time, it is complex physilogical process, and you have to be careful with the it.

I have been thinking lately about the importance of training pace. It is also your fat burning zone. It is where your body learns to convert fat to fuel. If you go too hard during this phase of training then you never get this process to occur. Thus skipping a vital step in the training process. It completely baffles me how some people don't use a HR monitor, or if they use one, they don't even know what zone they need to be working in. Even if you are 1 beat out of training pace, you are skipping this process, producing more lactic acid than you can flush, risking injury, and not improving. I guess what I am saying is that everything needs to be periodized. Not just our training but also your diet. I always periodize what I eat. An example. This winter(base training) more fats, and protein, less carbs. As I get into my build periods and now in my taper. I try to reverse that. Less fats, same protein, increased carbs. Everything you take in should go in with a purpose..... To sustain your workouts and recover. Ask yourself when you are eating if you accomplishing these things. It will make you think twice about that cookie. You have to think long term when it comes to diet and nutrition. Ok I'm tired. Sorry for the babble. I have just been so focused on nutrition, it comes out in my writing.

Until next time. RT

Final Prep for St. Croix

This weekend turned out to be a great way to cap off some hard training leading up to a big race. The Playtri Festival was great for a first year event. Very well organized. I did the long course swim race on Sat. I was alittle disappointed with performance until the next day I realized that we swam the HIM course and not 1500m. So I guess not too bad of a swim on Sat. I was all over the place on Sat. Sun was a different story. I felt alot better in the water and felt like I really was able to swim near potential. I have putting alot of time in the water hoping to close the gap on the competition this year. I can tell those long sets for time are paying off, and those 15000-20000m weeks are starting to show. The rest of the olympic race went as I wanted. I rode hard yet under control like planned. I did push into the wind harder than I normally would in a longer race. It didn't wear on me too much. I was most pleased with my run. The plan was to ease into the run and try to stay in training pace to HIM pace the entire run, slowly building to a steady yet very manageable pace. I was able to do this and still run 40 min very comfortably. I did get into alittle sprint to the finish line with some guy for 3rd place overall. That was alot of fun and a big confidence builder for St. Croix in two weeks. Next two weeks are pretty light. Just some fine tuning, and making sure my diet is spot on. Thats it for now.

RT

1st Win

Well I finally got my first overall win a couple weeks ago at Iceman Sprint. I just now found enough time to make an entry about it. It definately wasn't my best performance, but I did enough to win. One thing that was interesting was that I didn't have the fastest swim, I didn't have the fastest bike, and I definately didn't have the fastest run, but I did do all three pretty good. It just further illustrates the point I try to make to my clients. Triathlon is the sport we are competing at. It isn't a swim, bike, or running race. It showed that you can win a triathlon and not be the fastest at any one sport. Well anyway I was still very pleased with the result and hope to carry some of that success and confidence to St. Croix. This weekend will be a nice test of fitness for me. I have my last build week leading up to St. Croix and I am ending the week with a mile swim race on Sat. and an Olympic distance tri on Sun. I have never done a swim race before, so it will be nice to get a gauge on what my top end opening water swimming is for the mile. I am going to treat the olympic alittle differently. I am going to treat the swim and bike like a sprint. Pretty much all out. Then I am going to build the run like in a half ironman. This will help me get an idea of how hard I can swim and bike in St. Croix. Bascially what kind of effort can I put out and still run well? It is great timing for a dress rehersal before a big HIM.

Train safe...... Ron