Today is a rest day and I’m bored so here it goes…

June 1st will mark the first tri of my 2014 season in Lake Mills. I’ve had a very consistent training block nearly injury-free and am looking forward to testing my fitness on Sunday! I’ve looked over past results (who doesn’t?) and I will say, it’s a fast group. The top 23 guys last year all ran sub 0:20:00 in the 5k and in 2012 six of the top ten in my age group ran sub 0:20:00. Consequently, I feel like I need to run a sub 0:20:00 on that course to feel good about it.

My goal is also to bike an average speed of 23mph+.  On Saturday my friend Kevin motopaced me  on a rural straightaway. It was the first time I tried that and the first interval was a pacing disaster.  By the second interval we had more less gotten the pacing down and I held a steady heart rate in the set.

I have no false expectations of smashing the Lake Mills bike course. It’s fairly flat and it’s a course for the bigger guys with superbikes and lots of power. I’m a little guy on an aluminum bike and am better suited to hilly courses with a lot of climbing. Those races will be coming up soon enough…

Haven’t done any [speed] testing yet, so I’m not sure how much I’ve progressed in the off-season. I do know I’m 136 lb. (and eating like a horse), my resting heart rate is 53bpm and in the small amount of speed work I’ve done on the treadmill, I was content with the pace. I’ve been training mainly volume work for my olympic distance race in late June and am feeling good about my endurance fitness.

My swim is coming along I guess. I’ve put in the time in the water, but I’m still working on turnover and speed. We’ll see where I’m at on Sunday, because my open water swims tend to be faster than what I’ve been timing in the pool. Adrenaline, a good wetsuit, and a pack of excellent swimmers all contribute to the faster split.

I’ve been putting in 6-7 day training weeks since January and I am itching to race. I eat, sleep and breathe triathlon and am ready to get some results in to see what needs the most work. In June, I have two more races after Lake Mills so there won’t be time to sit around. In my training build, I put in decent mileage so the next month will mostly be maintaining and hopefully sharpening up the pointy end.

Couldn’t quite hold this pace.