recharged

feel great right now. much better than in several months.

the last week was a recovery week... and it seemed to help out. the hardest weeks in the series are coming up but i don't mind. it is only about 80 days til the ironman!

every day is wash day it seems... some other things that have changed since starting this project about 17 months ago:

1 - friends ask what our "next big thing" is all the time - next race or whatever.

2 - monday weigh-ins are a lot more fun.

3 - we get a little embarrassed by the questions as we are certainly not athletic looking.

4 - in other sports i took a real interest in how to do them, like golf or hockey. but up until a year ago i didnt pay much attention on how to bike. lately i have been trying to get not faster but better at swimming and running.

5 - there are not enough hours in the day...

6 - i now have to wear a belt every day. i have new belts too.



and as a side note, on sunday we decided to see how fast we could run 10 miles. and some background here first. we are really slow. so shuffle ten miles is more accurate. our previous record was at goofy half marathon in january. after that we picked up the full training for the august event. so we haven't really been doing what we want too much, mostly we follow the book. which is a lot more than we would have done without it. so i am not complaining - but we dont just run what we want too much any more. so on sunday we biked a few miles and then decided to see what we could do in 10 miles. about 10 years ago me and a friend bet 4 events. we each took something we could do and added a bunch to it to see if we could improve. then we worked out for 5 months or so and then tested each other on weight lifting and running and other stuff. the running was to run 10 miles in under 100 minutes.

i know a lot of you cruise at faster paces. if you are a 4:00 or better marathoner you warm up at faster paces. but for us its fast. and 10 years ago i couldnt come close to it. neither could my friend. another friend managed to do it just to see if he could. but he said it was pretty hard. so in the back of my head i always wanted to break 10miles in 100 minutes.

at goofy we ran past the 10 mile point in 110 minutes. our fastest time ever for that distance. sunday we did it in 99:42. :-) felt pretty awesome.

after 7 miles i was sure we had it. the 8th mile was bad - but i thought we were ok and didnt look at the watch. then halfway through mile 9 i looked down.

Fock! fockfockfock! we were SLOW. it felt like we were running about 9:45ish but we were going about 10:30 - for a few miles. fock! should have been paying attention but i dont like to run with the watch in my face the whole time. now we had to move quick. i told resa we were in trouble and probably had to run a 9:25ish to get under 100. we ran the pace up for us to pretty tough going. ran out the mile in 9:20 something and managed to get the 99minutes and 42 second ten miles.

new personal best and a big milestone.

its not like we went from an 8 pace to a 7 pace, but for us going from about a 2:45 half marathon to now flirting with a 2:15 in about a year had us smiling.


in other news - resa's new bike should show up any minute.





SCORES!

mental: 9.5 - feel great about the new bike, the probability of surviving the swim and grinding out the run right now. naggy worry is our long distance eating - that's the last piece of the puzzle.

physical: 10 - rested, feel strong. the toughest weeks start today so good that i do feel ready for them. bring it on!

workouts: 7 - was a taper lame week, we did the lame workouts. and the fun run on sunday.