I had hoped to wake up early this morning to hit the pool for a swim, but my body had other ideas. I am really finding that I crave more sleep than usual as I go through training, which makes sense. It makes me feel like I have even less time for other activities, but whatcanyado?

I like the group training on Wednesdays because it gives me a good excuse to leave work at a decent hour. I was talking to a fellow trainee and she said she actually left in the middle of a meeting. If we were training on our own, it’d be a little harder to get away with cutting out, but since it’s for such a good cause–no one can really give ya any flak.

Anyhoo, tonight’s group outing was at Kezar Stadium. We were supposed to be doing our second mile marker set, but there was a soccer match between a SF local team and some team from Spain (who was trouncing our local boys), so the track was closed. We made do and ended up running on the blacktop around the top of the stadium. It was cool to watch some soccer while we ran (until the pain started). Watching them play made me miss playing. Maybe after my tri I’ll look into playing again, since my conditioning will be up there.

After stretching, we broke up into three groups. I opted to run with the Big Kahuna (1/2 Iron Man) guys. I’m feeling pretty good about my running and felt like I needed the workout after missing my swim workout this morning. I would definitely be doing the half if sister wasn’t coming out. Not that I’m not thrilled she’s coming out to participate! I’m training just as hard as I would–I’ll just be trying to really crush on the olympic distance.

Our workout was sets of three laps around the blacktop (about 1.25 miles). The goal was to decrease the time for each lap by about five seconds. The first go around was pretty easy. Mostly because I took a pit stop during the first lap, so it was pretty easy to shave five seconds, heh. Still, I clocked in at 9.52, which is about a 7.30/mile pace. Then we rested for a whole minute before doing it again. This was my best time, 8.42 or a 6.58/mile pace. Woo-hoo! We rested for two minutes, then set out again. I slowed down just a little bit with 8.46 (7.00/mile pace). Rested three minutes or so and then did it one more time, with pretty much the same results as before (8.46 or 7.0/mile pace). Coach gave us a little bit of a breather before sending us on a final four lap route. I messed and forgot to get the stopped time, but it was about a 7.0/mile pace. Mostly because I was neck in neck with this other guy and we kept pushing each other–a little friendly competition. 🙂 Then we took a one lap cool-down before doing some brutal core workouts. I would really be stoked if I could keep a seven minute mile pace at the end of the triathlon. I doubt that will happen, but if you had told me a year ago that I’d be running back to back to back to back seven minute miles, I would have laughed at you. In all, we ran about 7.08 miles

Total Tri Training Numbers
Swim: 19090 meters
Bike: 172 miles
Run: 80.91 miles