Second Half Refocus

Since I am not racing Ironman this year, and the second half of my schedule has been up in the air, until now, I decided to take last week after Racine off with no structured training, and to rest mentally and physically. Since I walked a good portion last Sunday, the rest I need was much more mental and it helped greatly. My mid-season break has recharged my batteries, let me reflect, and helped me refocus myself to push through these final 8 weeks until my tri-season is over.

My main race for the year was Racine and to hopefully have a breakthrough race. That did not happen and so I have decided to spend the second half focusing on 2 HIM's (Pigman, Branson 70.3) to put together a solid swim, bike, run effort with no time goals in mind. I simply want to run to my current potential in a HIM and see where it puts me. Pigman will be good for the heat, and Branson will be good as the course simulates IMWI on the bike leg.

With training I am four weeks out until Pigman so a hard 21-24 day block is in store starting tomorrow. The plan is really up in the air and I will be experimenting with some new workouts to hopefully prepare me to run off the bike a little better. These workouts are aimed to focus on my weaknesses, and prepare me for the HIM distance. THe workouts I have choosen are as follows. Bike heavy HIM rides with overdistance work, then a small run off, time of the workout should hit around 5 hours at it's peak, to replicate the time that I will spend on the course for a HIM. This workout in itself will let me recover faster with shorter runs, but work my body for race effort and time by extending my bike distance. Long Runs; I really need to focus on these, and hope to get in a couple of 13-14 milers before Pigman, mostly done at or around HIM (whatever that is...). My endurance is begging for me to finally break out of my shell it push myself through those long runs. Swim-bike bricks; a major issue for me this year is feeling good on the first few miles of my rides out of the water, I need to find out how to ride those first 10-15 miles so some practice is in store. Run speedwork; that phrase scares me, but I fall into the philosophy in the past that you need serious base miles before you put in speedwork. Well F--- it, I am going to incorporate light and short speed sessions into my weekly runs, mostly tempo runs, maybe fartleks, but no time at the track.

This in a nutshell is what I am planning on for the next 21-24 days. All of the workouts I mentioned are indentifying my key areas of weakness that I need to work on. This is something that I have failed to do in the past, as I have always seemed to focus more on my strengths in the past, then my weaknesses. I will adjust accordingly after Pigman if I need to for Branson and hopefully find some success and better knowledge of myself as a long-distance triathlete will ensue. Tomorrow will be my first "experiment".

BC