right where I want to be...

This is a photo of me from Temecula last year heading up the gnarly climb right out of T2. It crushes a lot of people but I love it. I had a dream about this part of the course last night. Let's just say "I cannont F'n wait to race!"

It wasn't until my preparation for Xterra worlds last year and a talk by Joe Friel did I really understand what it took to come to a true "peak". In the past I have always tried to race too much in weird state between building my fitness and still managing some rest to perform. This year has been different. All races I have done have been carefully planned and were built into my schedule in a way that would add towards my build up for Temecula with no regard to the outcome.

Trevor just posted a good "Friel" article on peaking on his coaching blog. Read & Learn.

I split my season into to halves and the first half will come to a close with my first "A" race of the season on 5/18. My schedule was built meticulously around this race and I don't feel like training could have gone any better. Most of the work is done... a couple more workouts with some race intensity and before you know it I'll be towing the line.

Last year, the week before the World Champs, we had the horrible fires in San Diego and I was forced to rest more than I would have during a typical race week. The result... the best race of my life. So I will be approaching next week in a similar way to the week before worlds last year. I am confident that I will towing the line hungry and ready to throwdown!

I have solid weekend of race-sim workouts that I am really looking forward to. Early Saturday morning I will be heading down to the TCSD club race with Beth. I am just going to race the swim... the more head banging I can get in the swim prior to race day the better. After I am out of the water I will be heading straight home to get my bike and gear and then of to Vail lake in Temecula. I will be meeting Jim out there for one last pre-ride/run.



They posted the splits from the race last weekend here:
Sprint Sprint Split times

swim: 6:32
bike: 25:00
run: 16:01
finish: 47:33 (3 seconds back from the winner)

I am pretty stoked with everything but my swim split, but am not worried about it. It's kind of hard to get true split times when there are only 3 splits and the transitions are included... somewhere. I didn't have a great t1 so my actual bike split is probably off by ~20+ seconds and I had a long run from the "bike in" once I got off the bike and that time is added to my run, which means I ran the 3 miles in about 15:30 (guessing) which a great sign.


Here are some photos from the race thanks to opix.net:

coming out of the water:


mountain biking is WAY more fun:


Caue finishing with me on his heels. He puked right after crossing the line. seriously.


done.