2018 Triathlon Season Opener

Yesterday was the first Indoor Tri of 2018 at the Wheaton Sport Center. I had my usual swim (24 lengths) and a crappy bike (8.4 miles), but at least my run felt good (2.4 miles). That was a little better than I've done in the last 3 years. So over all, I'm happy with how it went.

Indoor trainer intervals

God indoor trainer w/o this AM. Did 7 2-min hard efforts starting at around 225 Watts and building up to 280 Watts with easy rest intervals. Used a spin bike with Power Meter.

5K Time Trial

I did my first 5K TT of the season today: 19:54 (~6:25/mile).  It has been exceptionally cold so far this year, but today was one of those fluke days in January when it gets above 50.  It was in the low 50s, rainy and windy, but I ran in shorts and a sweater. By the end, my shoes and compression socks were totally soaked. I felt horrible, but that's how you're suppose to feel when you go hard, right?
     Had a weird HR response: first mile felt pretty easy, but starting at the hill at the beginning of the 2nd mile it got a lot tougher. Likely those big jumps in HR represent limitations in the wrist-worn HR monitor (i.e. lack of sensitivity to subtle changes in HR). 

Training

My coach, Jim, officially started today.  My first w/o was a tempo 5 mile run.  I am happy to report that I did a good job gradually increasing my pace from the 1st (8 min/mile) to 5th mile (7:10 min/mile) and felt good! 

Happy New Year 2018!

Well, New Year 2018 came and went and now I just have to remember to use 18 in the dating all my letters.  This was a really fun holiday.  We ice skated, went down hill and cross country skiing and watched a lot of movies!  Despite frigid temperatures from Xmas straight through this whole week, we managed to get outside a lot.  Lance even went cross-country skiing with me (he gave up video game time to brave sub-zero temperatures at the Arboretum)!  Wow, I was impressed.  We had fun too, following a huge coyote around and going up and down some hills.  Yesterday, Lance and Mikaely and I skied  at Grand Geneva for about 6 hours.  Again, absolutely freezing, but fun!

As for training, I've gotten in a few sessions.  I met with my coach for the next few months, Jim, on Saturday and we did a small brick workout.  I'm excited to really get going, but I also don't want to fall into my usual "start super hard and burn out by race day" pattern.  I've got to pace this. Build up gradually to the hardest month, March. We'll see how this goes!