I raced!

Yep, I raced. I did the TriWaco and it was kind of a last minute thing. I got a message from Dan about doing the swim leg of a relay and I was like, "Sure!" I actually swam 4 times in those 2 weeks. I got to the race, I was nice and relaxed, checked out the course, and did my thing. It was so-so. I like racing and it was fun, but the water was really hot and lots of sun in my eyes. And of course, my goggles fogged up in about 30 seconds. I hadn't swam open water since last year but I know how to sight and swim in a pack so I didn't feel the need to practice it before; I've been doing it for years. I was on feet the way out and then we started hitting track from the wave in front of us. At that point, it was tough to stay on feet because I was trying to avoid everyone swimming a bit slow. The sun sucked at this point and I was swimming along and looked left. I saw the yellow turn buoy about 10m to my left and I was already a couple of meters past it. There were people swimming straight at that point since they didn't see the buoy. I cut across some swim lanes quickly and kept going. The next buoy was right in the sun and I didn't see it until I was about 2 meters away from it.

Coming back wasn't that bad. The sun was behind us but there was still a ton of traffic in the way. I couldn't find any feet to stay on so I basically swam by myself the entire time. As it got closer, I swam closer and closer to the buoys. I scoped out the course knew not to swim from buoy to buoy because they weren't perfectly straight. I took the last 2 turns in and was picking it up a bit. I felt pretty tired at this point which is the point of a swim relay. I was concentrating on good form and wearing myself out since my day was done. I got out of the water and I had stashed flipflops by the exit. I put them on and then I had to climb, climb, climb. The T1 was up a back and forth ramp and this was the longest T1 run I have ever seen. I passed about 10 people or more going up the ramp because many people slow down during transition. It's still a race; move your ass and go! Before, Dan and I had planned on meeting at the end of transition since that would minimize the amount that he had to run with the bike. The other Eric caught me at the swim exit to say that we had to meet by the bike rack. At this point, my heart rate was spiked from running up the stairs. I gave Dan my chip, he was off, and I was done.

Dan's goal for the bike was to go sub 1 hour. He was totally geeked out in an aero helmet, aero wheels, and skin suit. He went out like a wild man and Eric and I just chilled. Well, I chilled and grabbed a beer while he warmed up. Oh, BTW, running in flip flops is not a good thing and I tore up my feet. But it was better than running barefoot on concrete. Dan came in and it was close to being under an hour. After the race, we found out his final time was 1:00:00. He was only 1 second away from his goal. Damnit! He'll get it next time though. Eric had the run and that was definitely the toughest leg of the course. 2 miles flat, 2 miles of gnarly hills, 2 miles of flat. Oh, and 6 miles of heat. We saw him for about the last third of a mile and he was struggling because of the conditions. He crossed the line and we were done for the day. He was hurting but he did draw the short straw, but he did well. Our relay team finished in 2:30:25 and we ended up 1st in the men's relay (out of 4 teams) so we did well. We went back to the room, showered up, and headed home.

Oh, my swim and T1 time was 31:57 so I didn't get a true swim split unfortunately. I was really looking forward to it though but timing isn't perfect. I probably went around 30:00. There was a lot of talk that the course was accurate at 1500m but I doubt it. The pace on Run-Far had it at 1900m which is closer to what it felt like. So, who knows how long it was actually, but that's the nature of swim courses.

Other than that, I run about 10.5 miles for the week. Kinda low but that was a bit planned.

Weekly run mileage: 10.5 miles
Asics mileage: 257.5 miles

Summer Training Sucks!

I know I'm in the minority when I say this but I really don't like the heat of the Austin summer. Training in this summer really sucks! It's really hot, it's uncomfortable, never is a good time to train, blah blah blah. The good thing though is that this training is building mental fortitude. My philosophy at the moment is to just get through the summer and not let the heat melt me. So far, I've actually been increasing my mileage each week. I'm not looking forward to each workout, but I'm doing them anyways because I know it'll be worth it in the long term. So, it sucks but I'm bothering through it until cooler weather gets here.

With that said, it's been a fucking long time since I updated this damn blog. I kept thinking it has been only a week or two but it has been 5 weeks. Ugh, but I'm still training. I'm actually running about 14-15 miles each week the last few weeks and I want to keep that up. My knee is getting better but it still hurts a decent amount. I'm actually being pretty good about doing my PT and that is paying off. Although I haven't updated this in awhile, I have still been keeping track of my run mileage.

June 6th: 8 miles
June 13th: 13 miles
June 20th: 13 miles
June 27th: 15.5 miles
2 Weeks Ago: 14 miles
Last Week: 13.5 miles

Asics Run Mileage: 247 miles (shit, I need new shoes)