It’s strange to be calling these “early season” thoughts when I have four running events behind me already, but this is the first week of training for my only triathlon this year. It makes me feel beginner-ish.

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This will be a brief entry. I’m using the touch screen keyboard on the Surface, and it frequently frustrates me.

My time for Bloomsday was better than last year, but still over 1:40. I felt good through most of it, but after mile six, my glutes were tired. I walked a lot.

Next year, I need to decide to train specifically for Bloomsday, walk it, or just treat it as a long workout and accept whatever time I get. Clearly, if I’m in good enough condition to run the Badger Mountain Challenge 50K, I should be in good enough condition to run Bloomsday.

More later…

The fortieth Bloomsday is this coming Sunday. It’ll be my third. After completing the last two, I’ve proclaimed “Next year I will be twenty pounds lighter and twenty minutes faster!” Perhaps that will happen with the forty-first Bloomsday… Continue reading →

This week’s long workout was an 11-mile run. I decided to do it yesterday (Friday) to free up all of Saturday. (My mother-in-law is visiting, and I figured we’d be doing an auto tour on Saturday.) I mapped out a new, longer route on Badger Mountain. As usual, the first mile sucked. Continue reading →

I’ve been wanting to run home for a while. I’d hoped we could work it into last year’s triathlon training; unfortunately, a long run never fell onto a day that lent itself to a run home from work. Continue reading →

I have an unfortunate history crashing my bike when the rear quick release comes out of the dropouts. I’ve learned that I absolutely, positively, need to double-check the QR anytime I’ve taken off the rear wheel. It only took me several embarrassing crashes while crossing major thoroughfares (Argent Road, A Street, Court Street) to figure out this important bike safety tip. Continue reading →

I have a 45-minute swim scheduled every Thursday morning. I don’t have to be in court until 9:00 a.m., and the club is across the street from the court. It’s a perfect set-up for me to get in a swim workout. But I still have to get up early (5:30 a.m.) to get to the club early enough to get in the 45-minute swim. Continue reading →

Today’s run workout was supposed to be a 4-mile run with 15 minute “tempo step ups.” I’ve never really understood what that means. With a one-mile warm-up and cool-down, that leaves two miles. Fifteen minutes of a relatively fast pace is more than a mile. I think today is the day I decided to give up on that workout – in the future, when it shows up on the schedule, I’ll do cadence intervals or hills. Continue reading →

I often speak of how much I love cycling. Last season, I had to really throttle back on riding as I was training for my Olympic-distance triathlon. That may seem counterintuitive, as an Oly includes a 40 km bike ride, but the bike is my strong event, and my run and swim needed a lot of work. Continue reading →

I rode my bike home from work today. I may not be the wisest choice. We’re heading out of town this weekend, and I want to leave in the mid-afternoon tomorrow — I could have spent the extra time getting ready. But I haven’t ridden in a few weeks, and it was the warmest day we’ve had this spring, and there wasn’t much wind. I had to ride! Continue reading →