Friday 5.19.2005 - making decisions...

So I decided at the last minute yesterday to not do the Tri club aquathon. The race was going to be a 1000m swim followed by a 5k beach run and I really wanted to do it, and had been planning on it. Then while sitting in my office yesterday afternoon I started to really think if going out and running a hard 5k would have any positive or negative affects on my upcoming A race on Sunday.

I wasn't worried about the swim taking too much out of me but it was the run that was giving me second thoughts. The run was on the beach and I could just imagine sand getting in my shoes, getting blisters, and just generally trashing my feet. I also considered doing the race and just running at 3/4 speed, but knowing my competitive nature I knew that me taking it easy was unlikely.


It also took me longer to recover from last weeks tought duathlon that I had expected. My calves really took a beating in the hills. Instead of the aquathon I did my own tempo run on the trails of San Elijo lagoon.
10 min warm up
10 min race pace
10 min cool down

that's it. simple.

I was feeling really a good about my decision until I got on the computer this morning. I checked the tri clubs web page and they already had posted photos of the race. And who was there racing... everybody. Including Jim Vance, local Xterra pro, and Danelle Kabush. Danelle Kabush is from Canada (She's in town for the race this weekend) and races pro at Xterra. I met her last weekend at our club Duathlon. Maybe it would have been a good tune-up... maybe not. I run into this with training it seems every week. I start to question my plan. Am I training enough, hard enough, recovering enough, tapering long enough??? We'll find out this weekend enough. IMMIKE touched on this in a really good post this week. Check it out... it's a killer blog.

Here's a race report from the Aquathon by GuernseyMan. He cleaned up and finished second behind Jim Vance! I am very stoked for him and all the little grommets that competed in the Quackathon.

so my taper... after my ocean swim this morning I would have to say it's working. This is the first time I have ever reduced swim volume going into a race, and I felt better in the water this morning than ever before. I breezed through a mellow 1+ mile swim. I only got in the pool twice this week (usually 4 pool swims a week and 2 oean swims) for a totally of 4800 yards. I feel really strong and rested.

I am heading out to Temecula in a bit for a pre-ride and will be camping all weekend. So it's here. My A race. Hope it goes well. I will defintely be posting a report when I get back.







Photo from last weekends DU.