Busy, Busy, Busy

This is going to be a two-part post. I was trying to condense it as much as possible but just have too many good stories to tell! So I'll break it up for the benefit of my dwindling readership.

Life has been crazy and crazy awesome of late. Lots of racing, a bit of training and working as many odd jobs as I can find in the meantime! My official job title is Mr. Coach Laundry Man Fitness Attendant Instructor Sir. Quite lengthy and descriptive, not to mention catchy eh? I've always been an all-or-nothing type of guy and an unpredictable and flexible schedule has forced me to adapt. I've had to learn how to balance life with training and be much more go with the flow. In a lot of ways it has been very good because I've had to adjust my approach to training and realize that "something is better than nothing." So I try to make sure I get in some good quality workouts during the week and don't sweat it if I miss my 45min easy run or an hour easy spin.

All in all it's been a lot of fun and I'm enjoying life right now. That's probably mainly because of the fact that I've gotten faster and seen improvement in every race I've done so far this fall. Getting faster is fun. Period. I'll try to run through a quick recap.

Bridgeland- This was a sprint race in the Houston area which was my first race back in a while. I ended up 6th which was ok but not great. I felt like I was in a lot better shape then my race showed (Doesn't everyone think that though?) but you have what you have on the day. After Bridgeland my training SUCKED for a couple weeks. I was lazy, slept-in, skipped workouts, ate bon-bons, all the bad stuff a dedicated triathlete isn't supposed to do. I'm sure my wife was sick of me whining about how out of shape I was getting and how I was the worst professional athlete on the planet.

Typical. Me singing at the top of my lungs and my wife glaring at me angrily.

TriFest for MS- This race wasn't originally on my schedule but I got a call from Jess' brother (Also a professional triathlete) a week or so before and Jess and I decided to drive up to Bentonville, Arkansas to give it a try. It was labor day weekend and triathlon is fun so why not make a road trip out of it? Well Scott, the race director, did a stellar job and got us a wonderful homestay just 3 miles from the race site. It was an interesting format with an 800m pool swim in LCM followed by a 27 miles bike on a 7 loop course and then another 700m before finishing off with the typical 10k. My swim was so-so but I crushed the bike. I haven't been able to ride hard in so long because of back pain and it was so nice to put power on the pedals and make myself hurt. I ended up going 1:01 for the 27 mile ride followed by a second swim where I came close to drowning and horrible leg cramps in T3 before shuffling a miserable 10k.
Note: Swimming AFTER a hard bike ride SUCKS!!

On the spur of the moment I decided to jump in a 10k the morning after the race because there was a bit of prize money and... well, who doesn't want a goodie bag like this one?

A lead pack of 4 formed from the get go with me just off the back and
when they rolled through the mile in 5:05 with me at 5:10 I knew top 3 was out of the question.

However I was determined to run hard and even though this >>>>>>   ugly guy was starting to make his presence known. I contemplated dropping out, not sure if the damage to my foot was going to be worth it but when I pr'd my 5 mile and knew I had a shot to pr my 10k I had to keep going! I ended running 34:00 which was a 12 second pr but oh so close to breaking 34. Better luck next time I suppose. In reality, I was quite pleased because it was on a hilly course the day after smashing my legs on the bike and then cramping horribly.

red badge of courage

The weekend in Arkansas gave me a good confidence boost. I think I got myself a bit overtrained doing base work in July and early august along with the lack of intensity resulted in feeling very sluggish and off at Bridgeland. After the Arkansas weekend my suspicions of lurking fitness were confirmed and my faith in my bike ride rejuvenated. So I did what would be expected in such circumstances- I stopped riding my bike for two weeks. Ok, that's not completely true but I only did a couple rides over the next two weeks though one of them was a 75 miler. Again, not ideal training but my swim and run were still going well and I had another big weekend double coming up.