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!  

Three mile thursdays

My new workout for Thursdays is either a set of 3 one mile repeats with 6 minutes easy in between or a straight out 3.1 mile TT. I'm going to try to do this consistently over the next 3 months and track my progress.  Today, a did the 3 one mile repeats on a very tight 12 laps/mile track at about 6:20 /mile pace.

Duathlon Nationals in just over 3 months!

I just entered the 2018 Duathlon Nationals! Only a little over 3 months out!  Suddenly it all seems so close now. Can I really get it together by then given the crappy weather here in Chicago? I'm not sure, but I'm going to give it a try. I'll be at that start line and then we'll see how it goes...

Off season

I've read several articles by pro triathletes who all say that you need to really rest up during the off season and do minimal hard workouts. I get it: you want to feel refreshed, both physically and mentally, to take on a new season of training and racing. But, most of these athletes who recommend getting a lot of rest and doing few hard w/o during the winter months are younger.  I have only moderately decreased my workout load over the winter months for last decade because I feel like, at my age, I can't afford to lose conditioning because its too hard to regain it!  So, again this year I'm faced with the dilemma: take more time off or try and retain a higher degree of fitness through the winter months. Then there is also the matter of mentally, how do I back off?  I NEED to workout for multiple reasons, one of which is my sanity!  What to do?   

Getting into the holiday spirit

We had a bit of snow over night and it does look kind of Christmasy out there!  Can't wait to get out XC skiing and ice skating!

As I was going through old photos and videos last night I came across lots of great pics of the kids and a picture from 2014 when I did nationals in Milwaukee, WI.  Mikaely is meeting the Bernstein Bears at the book show in Chicago at about age 3 or 4 and Lance is finishing his first triathlon (Batavia Tri) at about age 5.  I'm with Chrissie Wellington at registration where she was signing autographs.  On the bottom is one of my favorites: Michelle Jones (my daughter's name sake) meeting Mikaely Evans at the now defunct Women's Triathlon in Naperville, IL. Mik must be about 1 year old and that was the last year that Michelle Jones raced (She had won Kona the year or two before). Good memories!   

Swimming TT on Wednesday, 12/6

Did a 1650 swimming TT yesterday with a time of 31:07.  That's pretty slow, even for me, but at least it gives me lots of room to improve!