Thanks for getting us started tigerchik.
SoCalTricurious wrote:
This week, I am basically just getting back to normal. I am riding my bike tomorrow (first time in 3.5 weeks!) and swimming, lifting or running Thursday and trying to find my groove again.
I'm doing an Olympic distance race this weekend. I plan to treat it as a brick (my training partner is doing the half distance and cheering/sherpaing for him is the real reason for the trip) and hope it kickstarts my training and serves as a good benchmark -- I have a lot of work to do but now that I'm healthy enough to train I am really ready to hit it and figure out my 2017 goals.
Rode, swam, and lifted and ran as planned last week and our race weekend went great.
On Saturday, my training partner raced the half distance -- a cold swim, windy bike, and hot, dusty run -- and finished in the top ten among men with a huge PR (woo!) I couldn't have been prouder to sherpa for him and see his progress this year. On Sunday, he was my sherpa (and emergency mechanic) for the Olympic distance. This was my first triathlon in six months and it went well.
I had my best swim yet -- more than five minutes faster than my first Olympic last May. I guess I know what the silver lining of spending nearly half the year on the runner's disabled list was... But seriously, I'm super duper proud of my swim progress. In a year, we went from being unable to hold our faces in the water to coming out of the water mid-pack with big, silly grins :D Don't tell running, but I think I accidentally fell in love with swimming.
My bike split was good. I ended up having to borrow a friend's road bike last minute (I was planning to ride my CX but the axle hub got damaged -- doctor's orders still have me upright since he blames the bike fit/aero for the strain in my hips that took me out this summer). Her bike was a little small for me but I just tried to stay in a position where I didn't feel crunched and could give my hips some clearance if that makes any sense.
For the run, my hips were right but not painful so I just took a comfortable pace with a shorter gait. I didn't push my body to a place where it wasn't ready to go. It was my slowest 10K by minutes but I'm trying really, really hard to be kind to my body given where I am in the rebuilding/recovering process and with respect to current fitness. That was mentally hard but I did find it amusing to see my strengths so flipped in a year.
Overall, had a good race, won my age group, and am glad to be back in action!
Now my rookie season is officially over. I may have missed half of it but am still really happy and have loved racing and training for triathlon. Also, I really enjoy reading about everyone's racing and training and progress in this forum. Go Womens!
Next up for me, will be getting a real bike fit. I am hoping to get on a tri bike by end of January so I can put in work on the bike to get comfortable and faster. I'll also continue working on my swim, slowly add some intensity to my run this winter.
I hope everyone has a great week!
(Formerly SoCalTricurious, now in the PNW).