The year ahead.....

With my biggest race of the year behind me, I had to decide what to do with the rest of the year. Being a personal trainer I often have too convince my clients not to try to do too many things so they can maximize their goals. So of course, what do I do? I try to train simultaneously for a 101 mile century with 10,000 feet of climbing and a sprint triathlon. I knew this would be tough since trying to do enough climbing and endurance work would ultimately blunt my speed and make speed work on the track more difficult. So taking my own advice, I decided to make my sprint triathlon a lower priority and concentrate on the century. If I can't practice what I preach, I might as well stop preaching.

The ride I'm doing is called the Mountains of Misery. I haven't done a century in quiet some time and this is a tough one. It ends with a 5 mile climb. Check out the link for all the gory details.

My training has been going pretty well. I have been feeling strong on the bike and the last few weekends I have done upwards of 50 miles each day with lots of climbing and felt pretty good at the end of the ride. For those of you familiar with the climbs along Beach Drive, I have even started going up Forsythe Ave. on my way home just to try to get an idea of how to suffer at the end of a tough ride (for those not familiar with Forsythe Ave, it is about a 20% grade with speed bumps!, Ouch!).

I plan to take a short break after my June 15th Sprint triathlon and then start preparing for my first 1/2 marathon. I realize that my weakness in triathlon lately has been my run ( I know my swim is my weakest event, but I have been steadily improving in that event). My running seems to have been deteriorating a bit so I decided to focus on it for a while in an attempt to finish strongly in any other tri's I decide to do (either this year or next).

I have been trying to include more and more of my friends on my weekend rides so if I don't have your e-mail address, drop me a line and I will include you on my weekly e-mail ride list.

Hope to see you all soon.

Peace and keep training.....

Rob