August 15th, 2007
Stress Test Day 1
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.
