Twenty One Point One

This past week proved to be a great week for training, setting TWO PR’s on the bike, and the longest OW swim. First of all, I got my aero bars put on my Madone before Brett and I did the Full Moon ride. The Full Mood ride starts at the first parking lot of the Trace and is a 25 mile out and back trip. Brett and I ended up averaging exactly 20mph on the ride. This was very exciting because the most we had ever averaged on the trace was 19mph and it wasn’t without incredible effort. Plus, riding in the dark was a blast.

Then, the following day, I went out for the Friday afternoon open water swim at Hamilton Creek. Only two others showed up since there was a big race this weekend. We headed out to the 1.5 mile loop buoy and about halfway out the other two guys announced they were heading back. So, I finished my first 1.5 mile loop by myself. In the picture, we start to the left of the boats and swim way out around them and out into the main body of water… then back. It got a bit choppy once I got out of the cove area and into the main lake, but as evidenced by this post, I MADE IT. Anyone that knows me knows that this was an incredible accomplishment for me. I used to not do well in OW. It wasn’t fast, but it was very manageable and built up some great confidence in OW racing.

Saturday marked an incredible brick workout. I was back in KY and did an old 44 mile loop through Livermore, KY that I learned about last year with some buddies. There were some short 5% and 6% climbs, but most are around 2% and 3% so I was able to remain in the aero position nearly 90% of the time. Total climbing was only about 1,600 feet which is comparable to the 25 mile ride on the trace that I referred to above. I believe this route best reflects that of Augusta’s Half Ironman that Brett and I are doing later this year. I ended up setting another PR by averaging 21.1mph on this course by myself (and then ran a 5k immediately after at a 7:43 pace). This gave me great hope that I might be able to break 5:30 in Augusta. Later that day, as the family was out on the lake, I swam about another mile. It was a great day of training.

This past week’s training ended up yielding 6 swims (8 miles in the water), 2 bike rides (@ 20 and 21.1 mph), and 4 runs (all at sub 8 min miles, including a 10 miler). Took Sunday off and plan on only swimming today (Monday) since I have some recovering to do. In all, I feel great and honestly don’t have much soreness at all. I get two days off this weekend!!!