HHHunt Powersprint

Well, I've had quite the past couple of months. Since Shamrock, I've managed to get my knee back into good form, but while racing Duathlon Nationals, I crashed and severely sprained my right thumb. I was in a cast for 2 weeks, and a brace for another 3. Training has been subpar to say the least.

Well I had gotten a comp entry to race the Powersprint, so even though I felt like I would be in poor form, I decided to give it a whirl and see for real what kind of fitness I had.

The race is 300m swim, 20k bike, 5k run, and I hold the course record from last year, 50:36. It had been raining last year, but it had also been a superb race for me, so I was thinking that to touch anything close to that would be unrealistic. I was shooting for mid to high 52 minutes.

My best time for a timed 300m swim thus far had been 4:41. Yesterday I swam 4:23. Yeah 18 second PR. That was cool. It felt really pretty good too. Kept nice long strokes the entire time, tried to stay as smooth as I could, and worked on keeping good form. It really couldn't have gone too much better. All those hard swimming weeks throughout the winter paid off big time.

T1 was solid, actually my fastest t1 for this race by a couple seconds. I had a good position for my bike, and that's probably why.

The bike. Hmmmm. I still am shocked to think about how I pulled this one out of my arse. I avg 27.0 for 20k, going 27:31, and setting the bike record for this course by 45 seconds. I just crushed it, and felt great doing so. My legs just had so much to give, and I just kept in in the highest gear I could turnover, and went for it, full blast. I think the next fastest cyclist was 27:50ish, and there was one guy who actually went faster than me, but he didn't run afterwards, and was apparently completely tanked after the bike leg. Yeah, I'm not counting that cause the guy beat me by like 10 seconds, and had the race been over after the bike, I could have taken quite a bit off that time I think.

The run was ok...16:03 for 3 miles (apparently the course was .1 short). That's about 5:21 pace, which is not flying by any means, but it's still pretty solid after a fantastic swim and an even better bike. I was first by about 4 minutes, and even better I'm excited about getting going with my training and getting in even better shape. Bring it on!

Shamrock Half Marathon

For my first race of the season I decided to compete in my first half marathon. I stayed with my buddy Mike and his friend Todd. The morning of the race it was disgusting...rain, huge gusts of wind, about 35 degrees...yuck. But around 6:30 or so the rain stopped and the winds died down a bit. Schoener, Nally , and C. Healey were also running, and the plan was to start with Nally and Chris and see how it felt from there. We went out at what felt like a pedestrian pace. The first 2 miles were in 11:28, and I was working well with a pack of about 10-15 guys. We tried sharing the lead a bit, and mile 3 was a 5:40, hitting 3 miles in 17:08. I felt very comfortable, and my right knee was doing fine. Once we got onto shore drive, we were slightly more protected from the wind, so the pace dropped a bit, going through in 5:30, and then 5:31. These 2 miles strung our pack out a fair amount, and there were only about 5 of us at the 5 mile mark. I decided to keep the pace there or even a little hotter, and Nally was feeling good, so we more of less took off. mile 6 was 5:28, then 5:21 for mile 7. These two miles completely separated us from our pack and we were on our own. I was still feeling decent...legs were a little tired, but otherwise fine. Breathing was good. Mile 8 was a 5:21, and this mile I started developing a side cramp...not severe, but bad enough where it was a discomfort, and required that I work on it to try to alleviate some of the discomfort. Mile 9 was another 5:21, but after this mile, Nally took off, and I could not match his increased pace. I hot mile 10 in 5:27, mile 11 in 5:25, 12 in 5:28, and 13 in 5:23 before finishing in 1:11:58. I was 22nd place overall, and placed 3rd in my age group.
I was also the leading member of the Colonial Road Runner team that won the team competition.
It was a solid first race. I think I'm in shape right now to run about a 1:11:00, perhaps slightly faster (1:10:45ish), but with the cramp, I was not able to showcase my fitness level like I have the capability of. Still, breaking 1:12 for my first time at the distance is satisfying.
I still need to focus on clearing up my knee problem over the next week, and hopefully get into some regular training in the next couple of weeks.

Injury

Last week I was feeling so high on myself....I was training so well, and then BOOM! My knee stopped cooperating. I have had to deal with a case of runner's knee over the past week, but thankfully today it seems to be all but over. I'm still going to increase volume and intensity cautiously, but I should be ready to go for Shamrock in a week and a half.

I almost made it through February without injury. Basically my Base 2 period has pretty much been shot. What I had intended to accomplish has really not happened at all. But that's fine. I've been more consistent with my volume all Winter, so I'll be fine.

I don't like how my personality changes so much when I'm injured. It dangerously consumes all of my thoughts and frustrates me to no end. I need to constantly remind myself that triathlon is not the end all be all. It's a hobby and I need to treat it like so.

That being said-

I'm very excited about Shamrock in a week and a half. I love racing, and I haven't been in a competitive race since October, so I'm pumped.

January

It's been quite a while since I've posted. After the duathlon in October, I took a couple weeks off training, then starting in the middle of November, started to get back into it very slowly. My biggest goal for the month of January was to stay healthy and consistent with my prep phase, then beginning my base1.

Mission accomplished. I was able to put in a very solid month...maybe not as much time on the bike as I would have wanted, but my swimming went great, and I also managed to run around 30-40 miles a week, so that'll be a very solid starting ground for the remainder of the year. The past two January's I've managed to hurt myself, so to be able to go into February healthy is priceless. I'm not in the most incredible shape right now, but I'm a heck of a lot better off than the usual!

I have a really big weekend on training, and now I'm just sitting on my bed waiting for it to come. The weather is great, so it won't really be too bad, but to have so many hours looming in front of you is a little intimidating.

I've had the opportunity to think about my involvement in this sport, and I've come to a coupe of conclusions. I wouldn't say that it's specifically the running, cycling and swimming that excite me to no end, but the act of getting out everyday with a goal to achieve. I've become so passionate about accomplishing so much in this sport that I've realized that I'm missing out on a lot of things. Some of my friends just cannot understand why I do what I do, and even the ones who do understand that can't grasp the commitment it takes to be successful. I don't look at it as missing out, however. A lot of the things I'm missing out on are things that I don't miss anyways.

I do want to try to keep things in perspective though. There has to be a balance every once in a while to keep my sanity. I also need balance to compliment my passion. I just don't know how happy I would be if I just hung out with triathletes all the time. I kind of ran across that with the track team at W@M. I needed to get away from that to get in touch with life after my workout(s).

I don't know how long I'm going to stay really serious about this endeavor, but it will be for a while longer, and my friends are just going to have to accept that the choices I make on a daily basis are grounded in accomplishing the goals I have set for myself. Case closed.