My relatively short term goal is to complete the Jackson County Triathlon in 3 hours and 15 minutes in 2014 after completing it in 3 hours and 42 minutes in 2013 (my first attempt at a triathlon). The Jackson County tri consists of a 1500 meter swim, a 24 mile bike ride, and a 5 mile run. If you consistently read this blog you probably recall that I had a panic attack in the water and that impacted my entire race. Open water swimming is very, very different from swimming in a pool. Therefore, the first thing I need to do is start practicing open water swimming this spring, as soon as the local lakes open back up to swimmers. It took me almost 48 minutes to complete the swim portion of the tri. In the pool I can complete the same distance in 36 minutes. Theoretically, I should be able to cut 10 minutes off my swim time just by getting comfortable with and conditioned to open water swimming. Assuming I can cut 10 minutes off my swim, I still need to find 17 minutes somewhere else to get to 3 hours and 15 minutes. Yesterday I drove out to the lake to do my bike/run brick on the Jackson County tri course to get a base line for my training, without the swim. I completed the bike ride in 1 hour and 34 minutes (6 minutes better than my race time), and I completed the run in 1 hour and 1 minute (7.5 minutes better than my race time). My transition took 2 and a half minutes, but that included loading my bike in the car. Of course, both the bike ride and the run would be slower if I had done the swim first, because I would have been tired from the swim.
So that's my starting point. My current combined bike/run brick time, with transition, is 2 hours and 37.5 minutes. Assuming I could actually do both of those events that fast after the swim, that leaves me 37.5 minutes for the swim and the transition from swim to bike. During the 2013 tri those two components of the race took me 51 minutes. That's a lot of improvement that needs to happen.
I think we have to assume that my bike/run brick time will be somewhat faster than what I can do after the 1500 meter swim. So for just the bike/run brick, I need to improve my time by something. Since the bike ride is the longest segment of the race, most of my time improvement will come from that segment (according to Ruth). My biggest challenge on the bike is hill climbing. I am slow climbing hills. None of the hills in the race are huge, but there is a significant amount of uphill riding in the first 2/3rds of the loop. I will work on increasing my speed riding uphill. Yesterday I was experimenting with riding in easier gears and pedaling faster vs. grinding out the climbs in higher gears. I think, theoretically, it may make sense to go uphill in the easier gears and pedal faster, but I'm not sure. I will focus a lot of my bike training on hill climbing. It helped yesterday to watch my speed while going uphill. I can get pretty slow on some of the steeper climbs, as slow as 5.5mph. Yesterday I tried to keep my speed above 7.0mph on all climbs. I was not successful at this, but I think it is a good goal to work towards. Overall, I think my speed needs to average 17mph rather than 14.9mph, which was my average speed during the tri. At 17mph I will complete the bike ride in 88 minutes. Yesterday I completed the bike ride in 94 minutes (without the swim happening first). So I need to get at least 6 minutes faster on the bike ride. I want to be able to do the run in under and hour, which is easy if I don't do the bike ride first, and it's doable if I don't push for speed on the bike ride. Yesterday, I rode as hard as I could and the run was very difficult. I have a lot of work to do!!!! I think a reasonable goal is the following:
Swim: 38 minutes
Transition: 2 minutes
Bike ride: 88 minutes
Transition: 2 minutes
Run: 60 minutes
Total: 3 hours and 10 minutes.
This gives me 5 minutes of leeway and I can still finish within my goal of 3 hours and 15 minutes next year. Go, go, go!!! Train, train, train!!! Push, push, push!!!
Now, let's talk about my weight.
Part of my training regimen is to get to a lean weight of 140 pounds. As of this morning I weighed 155.0 pounds. I have finally lost the 8 pounds I gained the week after the triathlon. Thank goodness!!! That "extra" weight felt like an albatross hanging around my neck. I had to get seriously disciplined about my food to lose that 8 pounds. It did not just magically disappear when I stopped being ridiculous about my calorie consumption.
Now I am into the really hard work of losing this last 15, what I consider more permanent, pounds. I don't have any illusions that this weight will just fall off, but I know I can lose it if I combine disciplined eating habits with the amount of training that I am doing. The biggest challenge will be to lose the weight without losing muscle mass. My goal is to be lean, not skinny. My goal is to improve my strength/weight ratio, not to be a smaller person. I want the same amount of muscle (or more) that I have now to have to carry a 15 pound lighter load. Think about it. A gallon of milk weighs 8 pounds. How much harder is it to bike 24 miles or run 5 miles carrying two gallons of milk with you, than not? I would say that it is a lot harder!!! My calorie goal is to hit somewhere around 1800 calories a day and to eat at least 100 grams of protein a day. The protein is important to maintain and build muscle mass. This is a couple hundred more calories a day than I was eating when I was losing weight last year, but I am also exercising more. I believe the extra 200 calories a day will be important to maintaining my strength as I train. My goal is to lose the weight by the end of 2013, so that by the beginning of 2014 I am training for the triathlon at my "fighting" weight, without trying to lose any more weight.
Yesterday I ate 1,845 calories and 102 grams of protein. I wanted to eat more than that because of my big brick, but I had an upset stomach after the brick and couldn't eat much dinner. If that happens again, I'll make a big smoothie and drink that, to get the calories and protein restored after the brick.
That sums up my thoughts for the day. Each week I want to get a little faster, a little stronger, and a little leaner. It felt good to get benchmark times under my belt yesterday. My plan is to do a big brick once a month, to measure my progress. In between the big bricks I will do smaller bricks, once a week. I haven't been in the pool since the race, so I need to add a swim a couple evenings a week. Part of me is waiting for my swim clinic in October, but I know I need to get back in the pool before then. I also need a new suit that fits me better. The one I have is too big for me and I don't like that.
It's a gorgeous day and the chores got done yesterday. I'm looking forward to a little R&R with my husband on this beautiful Sunday.
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