Just for comparison: Seafair vs. Issaquah

Here we go:

Seafair: 12miles, 32.30, 22.13mph

Issaquah: 15miles, 37min, 24.32mph

I think we can infer that Issaquah is a much faster course since it required less power to go much faster.

I'm using these (vs. chunking in the Bellingham event) since they were flat-ish and the profile on paper at least looked similiar.

At Seafair (unless I was traveling on a descent (rare) and at a very high rate of speed (26mph+) ) I was focused on keeping power near threshold. Higher then that I could feel my legs start to sing.

While at Issaquah, I worked in a window slightly lower then Seafair.

Those times aren't too much to get excited about on flat courses where I had to fight wind. I do have a hilly long-course event coming up where my weight and those power numbers should help nicely. :)

Anybody wanna lend me a Zipp 404 or 808 w/Powertap hub for Lk Stevens? :)

Seafair: done and done.

That was eye opening.

I'll have more soon, but that "elite wave" stuff is no joking around. All people up in Seattle do is swim and then swim some more.

As a point of reference: The women's winner did Fat Salmon 3mile open water swim the day before, which of course, she won. I was watching Fat Salmon thinking: "Wouldn't be a bad idea sometime, I'll just swim pretty slow."

Anyway, in a nutshell did fine in the swim but decided to swim my own line. Bad idea. Once I chose to do that I swam considerably slower. I probably should have changed course to pick feet back up, sigh.

Bike went well, new historical bests for power were established, I'm getting close to 5w/kg @ threshold, which, by itself is exciting.

Run: Think I ran 17.20 (5.43, 6.15, 5.20) that middle mile was partially uphill, obviously part of the last mile was slightly down.

Mixed feelings since I was busy trying *not* to look really bad in front of 2000 people and I wound up executing a not too bad race while managing to improve on performances from the first couple of races so far. However, at the pointy end of the event were local ITU guys who are in another world w/regard to swimming. Duh. I'm never going to get there and that's not a too devastating thing to say, and I've always known going long was what I'd have to do. So..

Big takeaways still absolutely have to be learning how to swim with front pack swimmers and learning to hurt while doing it.

Either way, I've a three block of hard training block in front with a long-course event directly after.

The rust is off.

Quick how's it going this week..

Bellingham was almost two weeks ago and Seafair is one week off.

Not sure how I want to approach the week heading into Seafair, it makes sense to taper given that I really don't want to embarass myself.

At anyrate, swim has been sharp, run has been sharp and power on bike is coming easily these days.

It's not magic, we've just had a cooler week to train, so in a sense I'm lucking out; if next week is brutally hot you can guess how much I'll do leading up to the event.

It's confirmed: Lake Stevens and *not* Hulaman, though Hulaman is mighty tempting given the particulars.

One thing I need to do is see how well I can go over 1mile in open water. The 800m at B-ham was promising, but only half the distance.

Running off the bike...

Thanks to Paulo Sousa I don't have to write a thoughtful, cogent post on this.

http://thetriathlonbook.blogspot.com/2009/06/running-off-bike.html

You also might guess how often I "practice" running off the bike. Maybe once a month, if that.

Incidentally, how I approach "running off the bike" really hasn't changed this season vs. last season even though I'm not doing IM..

(Well, *maybe* I'll sneak into IMAZ but that's just a rumour ! )

Oh and hey.. those darn results got posted.

Yeah, I was a little off on how close to top three I was, no biggie.

I figured I'd point it out before the Anon poster, whoever he or she is points that out.

Incidentally, I'm having so much fun racing stuff that isn't iron distance this year.

Purposeful Training - Week of 7/5

In a nutshell this week looks "good" on the books as it were, but coming off Lake Padden last weekend I was hoping to hop back into the old routine: swim a ton, bike intervals and run track..

Turns out the weather and my schedule had a hand in my ability to get stuff done.

Yes, the frequency was good across the board; I did have a good swim set early in the week at Samena and did some fun riding in scouting out the Lake Stevens course (though I have not signed up yet) and a great ride to the top of Larch Mt on the fourth of July as the Corbett Country parade was starting and finishing.

My main purpose this week was to get through the workouts while the temps were about 95F all week and not blow it for the next session & day. Mission accomplished, but, I'm looking at the quality and it just wasn't there.

Well, we have some cool temps here over the next week, and in two weeks I'm off to race Seafair so I better buck up so that I have a good showing against those fleet Seattle boys.