I really didn’t plan for this to be posted so close the ACTUAL start of spring (7:21pm EDT), but it just kind of worked out this way. I’m happy its finally spring, although it doesn’t feel like it outside (or at least for the next week it won’t). I figured I would celebrate by putting the roof rack on the car in preparation for the bike season .. The most I can say is that training outside is slowly getting easier, so its all downhill from here .. it’ll be 80 degrees before I know it.

So I got an email earlier in the week telling me that the date for the Doylestown Duathlon got changed from April 9th until May 14th, which is just one week from my first sprint triathlon, so unfortunately I had to ask for a refund. I don’t think its necessarily a bad thing that the date moved as I did have some concern about whether I would really be ready for the bike part of the race or not. Thankfully this weekend I put all my worries aside about that and proved to myself that I could do a long distance on the bike.

I’ve been doing “brick” workouts on the weekends, and yesterday I pulled out 22 miles on the bike and then ran just under 4 miles. It went pretty good, and I started to understand the value of having strong core muscles. After the first 10 minutes of running (after that long bike ride), I felt that the only thing pulling me through my run were my ab muscles.. it felt like all my power was coming from my core. It was weird, and difficult to explain, but all the resistance and circuit work i’ve been doing is certainly paying off. I wrapped up the weekend with another hour of running today then did about 6 miles on the bike .. I decided to take the day off from circuit work since I know i’m going to be beaten on Tuesday morning during circuit. Stacey decided to tell us it will be an intense track interval circuit workout .. they are usually intense, so when SHE says its intense, it’ll be killer i’m sure.

There was news that the open water swims will be held in Wenonah Lake again this year just south of Philly starting in early May. This couldn’t have come at a better time as I seriously need the open water swimming time prior to the triathlon, and I feared I wouldn’t have a chance … its good that I can swim 1.25 miles now non-stop in a pool, but open-water it different. The only issue is with an outside swim so early in May is that it’ll be cold, so I have to get a wetsuit (which I was planning on renting for the triathlon).. maybe I’ll just buy one now so I have it in case I do more tri’s down the road. Anyway, they open up the lake on Thursdays and Sundays once you sign up, so i’ll probably shoot for leaving work early on a few Thursdays to head down and do the late day swim and beat the Sunday crowds. This will almost fit my training schedule as well, so it will work better than Sundays. The goal is to make sure the first time I hit open water to be when I’m starting the triathlon ..

So to prep more for the bike portion of the tri, I may do the Inaugural Let Me Go Charity Bike Ride on April 2nd in place of the Duathlon. Its not really a race, just a nice long bike ride .. but it gets me prepared to ride with other people, which i’m not used to. The 25 miles will take me just under 2 hours and since its my birthday that day, it’ll be a great way to start the day and get myself more ready for the tri (and celebrate yet another year on this big blue marble). On the swimming side, this week i’m starting to do drills instead of just laps .. we’ll see how they work out since my swim sessions are slowly getting longer and longer and longer, I need some variation, this should be the trick.

I hope this is not a crazy week .. its hard to train when things are crazy, but we’ll get there, just 9 weeks to go ..