Now, this is living

Despite what I noted in my previous post, I'm actually enjoying this taper quite a bit. Granted, I'm only one week in, but I already feel more rested and peaceful than I did two weeks ago. This past week just struck me as being a lot more civilized, in terms of both training load and intensity. And I liked it.

My week went something like this:

Monday - rest day.

Tuesday - swam 2300 yards (100 WU, 1 x 300, 2 x 200, 1 x 300, 2 x 200, 1 x 300, 1 x 300 pull, 200 CD).

Wednesday - 90 minute keiser ride (five minute WU, then increasing one gear from set point every five minutes through 45 minutes, then downshifting one gear every five minutes until set point; then two standing climbs, each for 2.5 minutes, with an equal amount of rest between).

Thursday - 45 minute hilly run.

Friday - OWS with Drew, 1.5 miles, 55-odd minutes.

Saturday - solo ride along the lakepath, two hours and twenty minutes.

On Sunday, Cath, Drew and I competed in the Chicago Accenture Olympic triathlon as a relay. Cath did the swim, Drew the bike, and I did the run. It was a ton of fun, despite the fact that we needed to check Drew's bike into transition by 5:30 a.m., and didn't start racing until almost 10:00 a.m. (wave 56!). Which meant that I got up at 3:30 a.m., and didn't start running until just after 11:30 a.m. But it's always fun watching this race - it's absolutely emormous, over 9000 people doing either the sprint or olympic distances, so it makes for great people-watching. The weather was cool and breezy for most of the morning, but cleared up nicely by afternoon.

Poor Cath had to swim her leg mostly into the windy swells, but posted a great swim time, and Drew powered through the headwinds like a knife through butta.

I was actually a little nervous about doing this event so close to race day, even as a relay, thinking that our competitive juices could lead to injury, but it ended up being a good time. My run actually felt effortless for almost the whole way, and I put up mile splits that I haven't seen since I was a much younger man. My 10k time was 43:34, which works out to just over 7:00 minute miles, and, more importantly, I felt great at that pace. Now, obviously, I didn't have the swim or bike in me before running, and it was only 6.2 miles, but it still gives me some confidence going into IM WI that I've got some level of run fitness going on.

I'm sure that this week's training will be similar to last week's easy-feast (people, when I taper, I taper HARD), and I have to get my bike into the shop for some last minute tweaks. I can feel the nerves starting to percolate, especially before drifting off to sleep, so I know that race day is on its way. Gulp.