Great Success!

I had a great week this week in regards to performance in training. To follow up from last week’s post, I did a run with the team on Monday and was ultimately disappointed when my knee still ended up sore and hurting after the run. I made a trip into the physical therapist who sponsors our tri club, Steve Orrock. A former marathoner turned triathlete, and a fellow registrant for this year’s Ironman CDA, Steve put me on a warmup bike, then analyzed me running on the treadmill. After giving me a few things to focus on while running, I was turned loose with the mandate to keep normal mileage but to do a few things throughout the run to help alleviate what was causing pain. I ended up putting in my biggest mileage week for running even after going through that so a big thanks to Steve for his help.

I showed up to my swim class Wednesday morning to find out that we were doing a timed 650 today to check progress since the beginning of the semester. My goal was to try and break the 13 minute mark which is about where I was sitting when I had last timed myself at that distance. It didn’t feel that I attacked the swim real hard but after finishing in 11:39 I was shouting and fist pumping. I probably looked pretty dorky to the other kids that had finished before me, but I was psyched so I didn’t even care. Monday I had taken a camera to the gym with me and had Mike Park film me some while swimming so that I could analyze my stroke and also have a visual image of some of the nuances in my stroke which my swim instructor has suggested as possible improvements. I think that really helped and has given me some things to focus such as my arm recovery and pull while swimming which makes my training feel more productive.

Robby flew in to Salt Lake on Friday and we road tripped down to St. George for a soccer evaluation camp at Dixie State on Saturday. I saw this as the perfect opportunity to get out into some decent weather and test myself with a long brick workout. We arrived at Dixie State College and my brother started his camp around 9am so as he went out to play, I unloaded my bike and attempted to head out into the desert to get on some long roads. Being unfamiliar with the area, I ended up riding many roads into a dead end but I eventually found another guy out riding and he sent me on a route where I could get another 20 more miles in without any dead ends and still wrap finish up back at the campus. Overall I put in 3 hours on my bike and logged 50 miles while out and about. Upon returning to the car, I loaded up the bike and slipped on my zoot tri shoes to give them their outdoor run debut. These things just look fast and when the flash of a camera goes off, they steal the spotlight (see the post run pics below). I took off at a slow pace and jogged for 60 minutes and after jogging for a while, I felt my legs loosen up pretty good. After finishing up my run, I clocked my mileage in the car, grabbed some food, and went back to watch the scrimmages at the end of the camp. My legs felt really good sitting through the end of the camp, the 4 hour drive home, and most surprisingly, they weren’t even the least bit sore when I woke up.

Knowing that I can put in that much time and distance in a ride/run brick without getting sore, along with seeing my swim times improving along the course of the semester has really got me on a pretty good training high for the week. I’m looking forward to continuing on with my training and hoping to continue seeing improvement. 4 weeks until Lake Havasu olympic tri, 8 weeks til Vegas half ironman, and 17 weeks til Ironman CDA!

Week 7: S: 5 mi; B: 50 mi + spinning; R: 19 mi