So I should be finding out where I stand right now with my “Stress Tests”.  Its too bad that the weather doesn’t seem to care.  Each day in the morning its been raining which pretty much has put the kabosh on my tests.  In order for me to be able to do my workouts they either have to be in the mornings prior to work or late in the afternoons.  Almost everyone can agree that things always seem to pop up in the afternoons and thats when all the plans are made.  Hence its better to work out in the mornings which have been rained out.  Normally I’m able to do some training in the afternoons but yesterday and today have not been conducive at all due to prior obligations and the amount of time these efforts will take.

So tomorrow I’ll be doing my half-marathon running stress test and Sunday I’ll be doing my cycling.  This weekend is wide open and no matter what the weather does there should be a window of opportunity to get out on the road.  As a heads up its good to sometimes train in the rain, heat, etc. because you may encounter those conditions during the race.  If I were doing normal training routines I would’ve gone out anyway to get over the mental aspect of running/cycling in those conditions.  But these “tests” will be for major distances and I can’t risk getting blisters from wet socks, sick from exposure, etc.  I can’t risk blowing these last few weeks of training before the triathlon due to an avoidable injury.  I missed my first attempt at a triathlon due to a twisted ankle.

I have put in 18 miles on my trainer and a 5 mile run on these days so they’re not a total loss, just not the half-Ironman distances.

It’s time to see how I shape up with my preparation for the Duke Liver Center Half Ironman in a months time.  Basically I need to know if I can pull off the distances required.  While I’m not going to do a practice race in it’s entirety for sheer practicality I am going to o each of the disciplines for their respective distance.  That means the 1.2 mile swim one day, 56 mile bike ride the next, and ending with a half-marathon on the third day.  I figure if I do this now with a month to go I’ll know how much more I need to build up or if I am on track to being able to complete the race, winning has never been a goal.

So today was the 1.2 mile swim which equates to about 84.5 laps in the pool.  I did 86 laps because if you end on an odd lap it puts you on the wrong side of the pool.  The results were that Im in really good shape for the swim.  I can tell Ill be sore tomorrow as I already feel stiff in the shoulders this afternoon.  I completed the laps in about an hour, I have to estimate because the Optimist Park pool doesn’t have all the clocks around the edge like Pullen Park does.  The cutoff for the swim in the triathlon is one hour and 15 minutes so I should be well inside that discipline.  I did like swimming in the new pool because its outdoors which was a nice change, and maybe will alleviate the farmers tan from my bike shorts and jersey.

I’m not fast by any means but I did feel like I kept a good pace going.  There was another swimmer there who I could tell was a triathalete by his gear and swim cap for Inside-Out sports.  He constantly was smoking me in the swim doing about two laps for each of my one and a third.  It was kind of disheartening till later when I saw him pulling off swim fins and sticking them on the edge of the pool.  I imagine he was doing some type of drills but it made me feel better to know he was “cheating”.  I also saw him drinking some Gatorade from a water bottle on the edge of the pool which made me realize that I had forgotten to have a breakfast bar and was swimming on an empty stomach.  That did little to help my energy and my mind grasped on to that as an excuse to try and slow down and talk myself into quitting, which I didn’t succumb to.

In the end I feel good about the swim portion of the upcoming race.  I do know now that I get bored towards the end in the pool but know that the race adrenalin will take care of that.

So I find out now that Pullen Park Aquatic Center is going to be closed until September 4th for maintenance.  That leaves me without a place to swim for three weeks in the end run of my Duke Liver Center Half Ironman training.  Not to mention that I’ll be doing the Endurance Challenge Triathlon in Hillsborough in two weeks.  Needless to say I needed to find a new place to keep swimming.  While looking I came across this site, www.swimmersguide.com, which is a good resource to find a place to swim no matter where you live.  With it I found a new swimming hole to fill in for the time that my local pool is closed.  If you’re in the market for a place to swim take a look and find a new pool.

Thought that I’d pass on the sad news that the Discovery Channel team is disbanding at the end of the year. This is the same team that evolved from the US Postal Service Lance Armstrong Teams. This team won eight of the last nine Tour De France’s so it was truly a dynasty. It’s pretty sad that cycling has become so stigmatized that a great team thats been a bright spot for the sport is left to fold. I can’t believe no one in America stepped up to sponsor them and keep them going.

Discovery Channel team to disband

By Darren Ennis 18 minutes ago

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Discovery Channel, the U.S.-based cycling team, will disband at the end of the season after being unable to secure a new sponsor, team manager Johan Bruyneel told Belgian television on Friday.

“I had contacts with candidate sponsors but the situation in the sport is so bad that nobody wants to be involved with us,” Bruyneel told VRT television in Dutch.

The team were forced to search for a new backer after Discovery Channel executives opted not to renew their title sponsorship worth in the region of $14 million a year.

But with the sport blighted by doping scandals, Bruyneel could not find a new sponsor.

Bruyneel added he was also retiring from the team — partly owned by seven-times Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong.

This year’s Tour winner Alberto Contador also rides for the outfit.

“After Armstrong, I wanted to win yet another Tour just once and that has happened. I have given it a lot of thought and I am satisfied that I have reached all I can with the team, so I stop,” Bruyneel said.

Bruyneel was in Madrid on Friday with Spaniard Contador, who held a press conference to proclaim himself a clean rider.

Last year, the 24 year-old was implicated in the Spanish anti-doping investigation Operation Puerto, but was cleared by the International Cycling Union (UCI).

However, suspicions and allegations in the media resurfaced after Contador won last month’s Tour de France which was dogged by doping scandals.

“I won the race cleanly and greatly enjoyed it,” Contador said.

(Additional reporting by Mark Elkington in Madrid)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070810/sp_nm/cycling_discovery_dc_2;_ylt=Ah5B4yG9RFHG79ycyW7mHRoE1vAI

Today when I started out on my run at 8:30 it was 87 degrees, by the time I made it home an hour and a half later it was 95.  Thats not counting what the heat index was.  All I know is after half a bottle of Cytomax and 45 minutes of running I had to stop and walk.  So all in all I finished about half of my run before bonking with a shirt that was soaked transparent and an almost empty water bottle.  My heart rate stayed in the aerobic zone through the whole walk home which shows that even walking can be enough sometimes.  Of course my average pace was shot but I still pulled off 7 and a half miles even with the heat.  Hopefully this heat wave will have broken by the time I’m back from Philadelphia.  There’s only so much of this that can go on and I’m not enough of a morning person to be able to do my workouts in the morning.  Nights are out of the question because at 10:30 last night the heat index was still 96.