Shoes?

Less than a week to Honu and I'm having shoe concerns. I purchased a pair of Ecco Biom's about 5 weeks ago and I love the shoes; however they are designed to promote a more natural running technique which requires a lot more muscle endurance on the calf muscle. With that being said I don't know if the calves are ready to work that hard for 13 miles. When I bought the shoes I made a small adjustment to my cycling cleats, moving the cleat further to the rear of the shoe which moves the focus away from the calf when your on the bike, saving the calves for the run. Everything is working just as I planned; however I'm concerned that the calves just are not ready. The second issue is that the course weaves through the golf course of the Fairmount Orchid Hotel which includes grass, dirt, crushed lava, asphalt and the wonderful concrete. These shoes coupled with concrete is not a good combo as they have very very little cushioning. My other options are the Zoot TT's or Nike Luna Racer, neither of which I've been running in lately. ????

Borrego Springs (aka The Sun)

We made our trip to Borrego Springs today for a lovely 50 mile bike ride followed by a 30 minute run. The morning started with me mis-calculating the time required to get there, which caused me to have to speed the entire way. I don't know if you've driven from San Diego to Borrego Springs through Julian, if you have'nt this is not a road you want to speed on. I felt like throwing up about 01:10:00 into the trip. Finally I arrived at about 7:35am, late! I put everything together on the bike, GPS, Power Meter, Fluids, Tires, Gels and more fluids and about 20 minutes later I was off. I started slow trying to keep the power below 220, pace at 21mph and the heart rate well below LT. Once the warm-up was finished I picked the Power up to about an avg of 240, pace at 25.5mph for the next 40 minutes finishing the first leg at about a 238 PM and a pace of 23.8 mph. On the way back you really get a chance to find all the false flats which put a hurt on the avg pace for about the first 30 minutes. I was able to push the pace and power back up on the last 30 minutes and finished the ride with an overall power avg of 230 watts, HR 163 avg and pace of 23 mph. And then there was the run. I felt good getting of the bike and was looking forward to seeing how the legs felt on the run. Well the legs felt ok, but the heat was unbearable I couldn't keep the HR under control and had to stop twice to try and get it back down to a controlable number. I can only hope that Honu is a little cooler on the run or I may have to break out the white tri gear, old school white too - single ply.

16 Days to Honu

A Good Swim and Track

I hit the pool today and it was a good day. I did some short sets, trying to focus heavily on form. You know the form is coming along when you can exert 1/2 the energy and beat your average pace by 5 seconds. I followed up the swim with a good track workout, a lot of zone 4 work; however I slipped into zone 5 a couple of times and had a little decoupling when trying to hold the 00:05:30 pace. Luckily I don't think I will need that pace in Hawaii.

17 Days to Honu

60 Swim 60 Bike.

Headed to the pool at about 5pm tonight to take care of my 60 min swim, to my suprise the pool was closed, so I headed back to the house to do a 60 on the bike. I decided to take out the road bike as I haven't ridden it in a few months. I thru the powertap on it and I was off. Speaking of the powertap, I love it! It forces you to work hard the entire time, I'm heading to FitStop Lab on Tuesday to find out what hard in wattage is equivalent to. I did the 60 and felt pretty good.

Spring Sprint Triathlon

Goal: Swim - 00:07:00 Bike - 00:27:00 Run - 00:19:30 -

Total - 0053:30

Actual: Swim - 00:06:58 Bike - 00:25:42 Run - 00:18:57 -

Total - 00:51:37

The Legs Were Tired !

The morning started well and I felt like I had a good chance to place in the top of my age group. Into the water and man did it stink, Dave and I did a few practice warm-ups and then off to the startline. The starter announced a 10 second countdown but forgot to count out loud, luckily I was close enough to hear him. The gun went off and it was the craziest start of any race I've participated in. To many people and not enough space, maybe racing elite would have been the ticket - less people and more space. After fighting through the crowd during the swim, it was time to head into the transition area. It was a quick transition and off on the bike. It sucked!! My legs had never felt so tired but I pushed through it and finished with the worst bike split in the past year. Back into transition and off on the run. I've been focusing on the run alot over the past month and felt pretty good as I took off down the path. 00:18:57 later I ran across the finish line. I was pretty frustrated with my results and the fact that I could see the second and third place finishers througout the entire race; however I could not catch them. After reviewing the 18hr p/wk workouts that I had put in over the past three weeks I gave myself a little break.