It's not about the bike--but the swim says maybe it is...

So, I'm still shoveling a lot. If I included it in my w/o time it would be by far the dominant component of my X-training time....The garage roof let it's load down onto my nice clean parking place today and I just spent 75 minutes removing at leat 3000 pounds of snow. And there is a lot more where that came from!

On a different note, So I decided to make a tactical shift in philosophy in my swim training. I'm feeling very good about my swim fitness so I don't think there is much downside to deviate from the tried and true path. I've decided to concentrate my swim time between now and Oceanside in swimming at my Threshold or Critical Swim Speed--especially during my quality sets. What that means is that I'm going to be swimming a lot of 1:30-1:32/100 SCY over the next 5 weeks. This is equivalent to a 31:30-32:30 1/2 IM swim pace.

Today I did 4 X (200/100) and I did my 200s in 3:00-3:04 and my 100s in 1:30-1:32 versus where I've been recently which is 2:50-2:52 for the 200s and 1:18-1:24 for the 100s. The difference is that instead of going on 4:00 for the 200s or 2:00 for the 100s I'm going on 3:30 ande 1:45 respectively. As a result I'm swimming slower but resting less. Today I did 1200 yards (out of 3000). Over the next few weeks I'll take that up to 2400 yards with the same 6:1 work/rest ratio. I'm really trying to dial in my race pace and my familiarity with working at that pace. These workouts feel easy in the beginning and then become progressively harder as I'm never quite able to get my HR down after each repeat....

I think these are somewhat analogous to tempo runs or cruise intervals in running.

Which got me to think about my bike. As you know, I'm by far the strongest on the bike and I've made the choice to focus on the run and swim in this build-up before OS. However, I've come to the conclusion that with our weather that my bike is just not going to be good enough on race day unless I start giving it some extra emphasis. I've always believed that the best way to have a good run in triathlon is to make sure you can rock on the bike. I'm worried right now that I'm behind the curve there.

Sooooo....due to my swim I've decided to try to figure out where my critical bike speed is and spend a lot of time on my CT to make sure I can deliver at OS. To that end I did a "Stairway to Heaven" today:

1 min @ 290watts/1 easy (all the rest are 1:1 hard:easy)

2(280), 3(270), 4(260), 5(250),6(240), 7(230)....tough w/o

Based on this I think I need to swallow my pride and focus on getting solid for a 1/2 IM ride in the 200-220 range as oppossed to my normal 220-240....and so I shall!