Half-way there

So, week 15 is in the books, and we ended it in pretty good fashion - Saturday, Drew and I ran 90 minutes (again starting with Cath's running group) along the lake path and Sunday we were back in Palos to bike some more rollers and do our brick along the wooded trails.

Saturday was - once agin - pretty uneventful: we held a nice pace the whole way, and I felt good despite having missed a run earlier in the week.

Sunday was the high note of the weekend - we got out to Palos at about 6:30 a.m., and this week our small group included Drew's friend (and business partner) Ross, who has recently committed himself to his first 70.3 (Steelhead). The plan was to do somewhere between 3.5 and 4.00 hours and brick that for 30 minutes. The weather was clear but chilly, and we all wore arm warmers or long sleeves to start. The big difference for me was that I broke out the tri bike for the first time this year. (I typically start the training year on the road bike and then move to the tri bike as the plan develops). Through a very strange twist of fate, I happened to secure a Cervelo P3 a couple years ago, which is much more bike than my modest skill (see the name of the blog, above) really allows for, but it's an amazing bike and is ridiculously fun to ride.

That said, the day was spectacular - the chill subsided once we got going, and there was very little wind all day. We even modified our tried-and-true route on the fly (again, how did we survive before the iPhone?!) to avoid a long and nasty section of pavement, and added a challenging (but much more scenice) segment to our course. I felt great the whole way - faster, smoother, and with much less effort than last week. I wish I could say that my fitness is that much better, but it really is the bike that made the difference. I could have gone much longer, which is pretty rare for me on long training days. The brick afterward was easy, too, and I felt like we got in a really solid training day.

Speaking of which, it looks like we're going up to Madison the weekend of June 27-28 to do a little training on the bike and run courses, which should be a good time. We didn't get to see the course in advance of the race our first time out, and I think it takes some of the anxiety away if you can get out there beforehand. Hopefully, the weather will be good, and we can get in some quality sessions.

More soon.