Slornow's and Wannabefaster's Summer Mentor Group - CLOSED (Page 34)

I don't have any funny stories, but you can remind yourself that you are about to PR since you've never done the distance!  The question can become "how big of a PR do I want?" when things get tough!  Good luck.  Have fun.

Hey, I forgot about that!  Good call.  Always a good idea to set a PR that can then be easily trumped with another PR down the road.  

I actually have another Oly on the calendar in July -- and that one is a much flatter course, at sea level (vs. my training at altitude) -- so conditions should bode well for a better time.  Hence the goal here is just to set a low enough bar...  !

Jason  -- good story / cautionary tale about the bike.  I may be in a similar boat -- the bike course is 20km of pretty solid uphill, and 20 km of pretty solid downhill.  I may be ready to cry at the turnaround -- but it's all fun and games on the return!

Scott-good luck at the race. I find the olympic distance to be really challenging.  Often it seems that people kind of lump sprints and olympics together but the olympic distance is usually at least twice the distance of a sprint.....so at least 2X the pain. Don't overcook the bike. 10k is still a long way to run/walk/shuffle/stumble/crawl....... I know you appreciate all the encouragement

Well, finally back to training today. Easy 5 mile run this morning. May do 20-30 minute swim at lunch then this evening I need to clean up all of my race stuff, clean my bike and take the race wheels off. The next race I have on the calendar is an olympic at the Gulf in early September. My coach thinks I should do AG Nationals in Milwaukee in August...the olympic on Saturday and the sprint on Sunday.  I'm leaning toward doing it but frankly am scared of what my bike workouts are going to look like over the next couple of months....lots of brutal intervals. That plus a "swim focus" to work on speed don't make the training sound too appealing.  Guess I'm just a wimp.

Jim-that is a great looking bike. Hope you enjoy it.  Nothing like a new bike to make riding even more fun! Wishing lots of safe and fast miles on it! 

Scott-good luck at the race. I find the olympic distance to be really challenging.  Often it seems that people kind of lump sprints and olympics together but the olympic distance is usually at least twice the distance of a sprint.....so at least 2X the pain. Don't overcook the bike. 10k is still a long way to run/walk/shuffle/stumble/crawl....... I know you appreciate all the encouragement

Well, finally back to training today. Easy 5 mile run this morning. May do 20-30 minute swim at lunch then this evening I need to clean up all of my race stuff, clean my bike and take the race wheels off. The next race I have on the calendar is an olympic at the Gulf in early September. My coach thinks I should do AG Nationals in Milwaukee in August...the olympic on Saturday and the sprint on Sunday.  I'm leaning toward doing it but frankly am scared of what my bike workouts are going to look like over the next couple of months....lots of brutal intervals. That plus a "swim focus" to work on speed don't make the training sound too appealing.  Guess I'm just a wimp.

Jim-that is a great looking bike. Hope you enjoy it.  Nothing like a new bike to make riding even more fun! Wishing lots of safe and fast miles on it! 

Yeah... that's some fine mentoring there Randy    Would hate to see your motivational speech in the locker room before a big football game!

Good advice though.  Hopefully the downhill bike portion will help preserve the legs for the run.  

The swim is 3x the distance which is the most daunting.  Luckily it's set up as 2 loops of 750m so there's a natural break.

Scott.

I'm back from Horribly Hilly experience and I can safely say there was no walking or tipping over today!  Rained the first hour and then was overcast and very humid so we totally lucked out on the weather.  I'm happy with the day overall.  I've not attempted terrain like this so early in the season so I am hoping it bodes well for the rest of the build to IM WI!

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!

PS.  I am totally jealous of your time in Paris (now go stretch!)

Oly is complete!   Quickie version of a race report:  

Swim was, in a word, phenomenal.  Given my experience with open-water swimming last year, I was apprehensive going in.  This time -- at 3x the distance -- had zero issues, swam confidently, and set a PR for 1500m (even faster than the pool).  Woohoo!  Couldn't believe how well this went.

Bike was also above expectations.  There was a bit of wind (better than I'd feared, but worse than I'd hoped!) which made the outbound uphill 20km rather slow -- but man, was I ever screaming on the return trip -- downhill, downwind.  Averaged >26 km/hr for the round trip, which I've never done over such a long distance.

The run... well, let's just say that Randy is a wise prophet.     Disappointed with the run.  I think -- much like with the half-marathon a few weeks back, once I started to cross into "never exercised this long before" territory, my body didn't know what to do.  So -- did a fair bit of run/walk.  Weather didn't help -- it was warmer than usual with a beating sun and no breeze on the run course.

On the whole -- my time was 3:21 which is not super fast, but probably on the faster end of what I'd expected.  (and of course, still a PR!)  The run will come as my body gets used to long distance events.  The real victory for me is the swim.   I have another Oly on the schedule for July, hoping to beat today's time.

Scott