I'm just 44 days out from Olympic Distance Age Group Worlds at the ITU World Triathlon Grand Final Rotterdam on September 17. Once our June travel was over, I really buckled down and resharpened my focus to do the right things to be as prepared as possible to have my best race. Coach Jim made adjustments to my training and without teaching and travel to work around, I have a bit more time for it.
Changes include:
- Sleep - 10 pm bedtime - not always successful but not too far off. Of course at this stage of life sleep is hit-or-miss
- More mindful eating and food choices
- Stretching and rolling each day
- Gym/strength training 2x a week - so far, so good and I'm enjoying it!
- An extra swim and and extra run most weeks
- More open water swimming
The training volume is higher, I'm on the track more, and there's more tempo/threshold work (but balanced with aerobic/easy).
Another change is that I've been doing more training with my friend Janet. We are in the same age group and have been swimming together for a few years now, but have been sharing more bike and run sessions lately too. We are a really good match across the board and are pretty similar in terms of strength, speed, endurance, punctuality, and attitude! She's a multi-Ironman and a phenomenal athlete and human!! July is always a tough month for me for training because of the heat and the mid-season blahs, but she's made it great!
As promised, I took July off of racing. This month I am doing two races. The first is the Health Focus Distance Run 10k in Salem, VA on August 12. This was the VERY first race I ever did in my life in 2008 and I haven't done it since. Then I'll return to the Luray Triathlon for the first time in many years to race the Olympic distance as a tune-up for Rotterdam.
I got the Team USA gear. This is the first year ROKA is making the tri suits (top photo) and it's always interesting trying to figure out fit and sizing with a different vendor. At 5'7" and 130 lbs I ended up in a size large and it still feels a tad short...go figure. It's a back zip suit and came with NO chamois and NO lanyard for the zipper. How do they expect people to unzip for the "necessaries?" Luckily I had a spare lanyard and while we could send them back to get a chamois added, I'll just skip it. I took it for a test brick workout and while it was fairly comfortable, it left me chafed.
The kids start back to school on Wednesday - a Junior and a Senior!! It's been a great summer and I'm not ready for them to go back.
It's not exactly been the restful, sit around, read books, relaxed type of summer, but I'll take it!
