4/1 - 4/7 Professional Triathlete Training Log - Weekly Swim, Bike, and Run Miles

The Developing Shiner
The Developing Shiner
This week I am coming to you from Tyler, Texas. After a busy week, I made a last minute
decision to go through with racing Ironman Texas 70.3 Galveston under the rational that afterwards I would make the trip to Tyler to see the World's best bike fitter John Cobb. I have been wanting to see a true expert in the field for some time now and I figured this would be my best opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

Although not recovered from Ironman Cabo, I did my best attempt this week at blowing on the coals to stoke the fire on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, with an easier day Thursday, followed by another epic 1150 mile drive on Friday. On a side note, this was the 20th time in my life that I did a solo drive covering at least 1000 miles in a day. However, the trip was far shorter than my single day record of 1460 miles. On Saturday, instead of warming up, I decided that I would totally modify my bike position. I knew this would be my last chance to experiment on the bike and so I went with something completely new to me, but seen on the likes of TJ Tollakson (minus the nut cups) and Floyd Landis in a sort of "Praying Mantis" type position.

As for the race. Well the swim didn't exactly go to plan. About 400 meters or so into the swim I got elbowed very hard in the eye socket, causing blurriness in my left eye and a leaky left eye gasket. At the time I thought my eye socket might be broken and I was already thinking about the huge medical bills that would result. In addition, I am left eye dominant, and that ended up being a huge problem as I had to switch to sighting with my right eye. Although seemingly minor, it totally changes the way you lift your head and affects your body position. As a result, swimming became tough and I struggled to main contact with the group. It ended up being a solo swim for the remaining 1400 meters and I came out of the water down major time from guys I should be able to swim with.

Despite the poor swim, I got on the bike knowing that I could very well bike my way back into the race. Coming out of the water I was 22nd, but I was making up major time and picking off one guy after the next. Oddly enough, on a totally flat course, nobody was too keen on riding with me and I continued on at a torrent pace until mile 48 when I caught up to pre-race favorite and british ITU stud, Will Clarke. At that time, I turned it off, rolled into transition in 6th place, and I headed out for a quick 13.1 miles.

Although my race would have been much easier had I gotten out of the swim with the pack, it was actually a blessing in disguise as it gives me the confidence that my bike power has returned to a level I am satisfied with. In addition, the combination with the "Free Speed" that I have picked up in thanks to Atomic is helping to give me the confidence that one of these days I am going to make a move in a major race and that will be the race.

My weekly swimbike, and run totals:

Total: 210 Miles / 16 hours 12 minutes
Swim: 14,800 yards / ~9 miles / 3 hours 52 minutes
Bike: 173 miles / 8 hours 59 minutes
Run: 29 miles / 3 hours 19 minutes
Core:  0 sessions / 0 hours 0 minutes





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