At the beach chilling before my 4th race of the season tomorrow morning. I did a short ride and run today and felt pretty flat--certainly not what I'd like to feel like on race morning. I have a bit of a stomach thing today/tonight so maybe I'm a little under the weather. At this point, not enough to disuade me from giving it a go tomorrow. I'm hoping tomorrow, with the excitement of the race, will yield something better.
I went to the race site and picked up my package this afternoon. The water in the lake seemed fine to me--probably high 50s or low 60s. Weather tomorrow seems pretty good--50-60 degrees during the race and about 10-15 mph winds. Might be a bit chilly on the bike and I imagine my feet will be pretty cold by the time I get to the run.
I don't know how many people are in my AG because the RD has decided that is not a relevant piece of data to include in the list of participants. I do know that the two gentlement who finished 2nd and 3rd last year are racing. I won by just a 25 second margin (although 2:00 was added to the 2nd place fellow for drafting). I'm not in as good shape as last year so this would seem to point to some concern about my ability to repeat. However, I do have these things going for me:
- I took it very easy last year on the swim--as I review my RR from last year this would seem to have been a tactical error. Tomorrow my plan is to swim easy for the first 3-4 minutes and then hammer away. Given my lack of training this year I feel I need to roll the dice a bit on the swim and try to perhaps "steal" 30-40 seconds there....
- Last year was the first year I raced on my new BMC TM01. The fit was horrible and I had one of my worse bike splits of my career--I was in a lot of pain. My fit is much improved (although, I'll be using this race as a key input to the decision to go up to Cadence for a whole fit re-do....I feel it's almost a given that I need to do this if I'm going to ride this beast at Kona later this year--which I am!) but still not perfect. I'm in quite a bit worse bike shape this year but I'm hoping the better fit cancels that out tomorrow....
- I had a really poor run last year as well--I attribute this to two things: 1) my run sucks (that will be true tomorrow as well), and 2) the bike fit impacted my running legs. This may be hopeful feelings but I'm hopeful none-the-less that despite my lesser run fitness this year I can hold the line on my run relative to my competition.
- While I'm not very fit at this point in the year, I have raced 5 times already. I did the same two sprints this year that I did last year and also the Cherry Blossom 10-miler both years. However, this year I have also done a half-marathon and a IM70.3, which I have to believe will be important in a race this long: 0.6-mile swim/31.5-mile bike/5.2-mile run.
We'll see! It's 9 o'clock--time to get some shut-eye!
I went to the race site and picked up my package this afternoon. The water in the lake seemed fine to me--probably high 50s or low 60s. Weather tomorrow seems pretty good--50-60 degrees during the race and about 10-15 mph winds. Might be a bit chilly on the bike and I imagine my feet will be pretty cold by the time I get to the run.
I don't know how many people are in my AG because the RD has decided that is not a relevant piece of data to include in the list of participants. I do know that the two gentlement who finished 2nd and 3rd last year are racing. I won by just a 25 second margin (although 2:00 was added to the 2nd place fellow for drafting). I'm not in as good shape as last year so this would seem to point to some concern about my ability to repeat. However, I do have these things going for me:
- I took it very easy last year on the swim--as I review my RR from last year this would seem to have been a tactical error. Tomorrow my plan is to swim easy for the first 3-4 minutes and then hammer away. Given my lack of training this year I feel I need to roll the dice a bit on the swim and try to perhaps "steal" 30-40 seconds there....
- Last year was the first year I raced on my new BMC TM01. The fit was horrible and I had one of my worse bike splits of my career--I was in a lot of pain. My fit is much improved (although, I'll be using this race as a key input to the decision to go up to Cadence for a whole fit re-do....I feel it's almost a given that I need to do this if I'm going to ride this beast at Kona later this year--which I am!) but still not perfect. I'm in quite a bit worse bike shape this year but I'm hoping the better fit cancels that out tomorrow....
- I had a really poor run last year as well--I attribute this to two things: 1) my run sucks (that will be true tomorrow as well), and 2) the bike fit impacted my running legs. This may be hopeful feelings but I'm hopeful none-the-less that despite my lesser run fitness this year I can hold the line on my run relative to my competition.
- While I'm not very fit at this point in the year, I have raced 5 times already. I did the same two sprints this year that I did last year and also the Cherry Blossom 10-miler both years. However, this year I have also done a half-marathon and a IM70.3, which I have to believe will be important in a race this long: 0.6-mile swim/31.5-mile bike/5.2-mile run.
We'll see! It's 9 o'clock--time to get some shut-eye!
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