Week of Jan 28 - Feb 3

Swim: 12,720yds, 4 swims

Bike: 1:45, 2 rides

Run: 37.01 miles, 5 runs

Total Time: 9:49

Another interesting week—I had to go home for jury duty,  so it was another week of traveling. Overall, it was still an okay week. We cut back to four days a week of swimming this week, and I am beginning to think I am a 5 day/week swimmer. I didn’t feel as comfortable in the water this week—it was fun though. Biking was…blah. For one reason or another, the workouts just seemed hard to fit in this week. Running was solid, as always—I can think I am having a “completely horrible week of running” and in reality it is just fine. Really don’t have much to say about training this week though. I did it. Survived. Didn’t have any TT or training breakthroughs this week, but I (mostly) got it done.

This week I got to race on the track for the first time since May! I was so excited. I told coach I wanted to run the 5k at Illinois College. I had never run an indoor 5k before, but I figured there’s no better time than now! On Friday night I was so excited, it felt like Christmas Eve. I am not sure if I was excited for the race, or nervous, but I couldn’t wait. Race morning came along and I was ready to go. Basically, to make a long story short…I ran 15:50 to PR (not bad for an “800m runner”).  My splits were...well, if it was a 3k race I would have been set! LOL. I was 4:49/9:42/15:13/15:50. I just got a little too aggressive early in the race--but hey, I've never been one to play it safe! I look forward to the next 5k I get to run on the track, whenever that may be!

My track PR was 16:01 from 2010. My road PR was 15:52 from 2009 (I'm pretty sure it was a short course though). I am happy to have run a PR! Think of it this way, the last time I ran a 5k PR I was running 70-80 miles a week in the middle of the summer, training for cross country. I was happy to PR off ~40 mpw of running (although I am swimming and biking now). And, even though I ran 15:50, I know I did not race to my ability, and I am looking forward to my next shot at a 5k! My track coach will tell you that I am still a middle distance runner (400/800/1500) but I think it is time to make the jump to “long distance.” To him, the 5k/10k is long distance—to me, the 5k is what I run in a sprint tri and the 10k is what I run in the Olympic distance tri. With the 70.3 being my favorite distance to race, the 5k/10k is “middle distance” to me. I guess it all just depends on how you look at it.

My 5k PR got me thinking about other PRs I have set in the last 365 days. So I decided to lay it out.

Running:

     400m (indoor), 800m (indoor), mile (indoor), 3k (indoor), 3 mile (road), 5k (indoor), 10k (road)

Swimming:

     100yd, 200yd, 400yd, 500yd

Triathlon:

     Sprint and Olympic

I think there are many things that have gone into this string of PRs but I am very happy with it. There is no secret to it, just a lot of hard work and sacrifices. I have had a pretty good last 365 days, and I can only hope that the streak will continue for the next year.

Dad’s half marathon training is coming along! He did his 8 mile long run (he made sure to tell me it was 8.4miles, not just 8) this week, and he is up to around 24 mpw. Now, some may say that an 8 mile long run is too much for low mileage, but I disagree. I’ve always been taught that the long run shouldn’t be more than 20-25% of your weekly mileage. But, if you only have 3 or 4 days a week (sometimes 5) to run, and you still want to get the mileage in, sometimes you break the rule. We have come up with a plan to get him to race day in shape and ready to go—and he will be ready!

The Clermont Draft Legal start list came out this week. It was kind of like an “is this real?” moment when I saw my name on the list with “U25 Elite Development” next to it. Everybody had told me I need to try my chances with draft-legal, so here’s my chance. I have total confidence that Coach Steve will get me to the start line of Clermont ready to go. It is a little intimidating to be entered into a race with 74 other studs, with a lot of them aiming to get their pro/elite card. But hey, what have I got to lose?  I am looking forward to the experience on March 9. Maybe this will give me a better idea if I like draft-legal, short course or long course racing—although I highly doubt I will decide draft-legal is “my race” and I did already say that I love the 70.3!

Song of the week!