Week 7 of Oly Training

Well I knew week 7 and 8 would take a hit due to our summer vacation, but it's all good. This week took an even bigger hit because a sore shoulder sidelined me from swimming for a couple weeks. The vacation schedule is a great lesson that if I plan to do a HIM or IM, I shouldn't plan one in September unless I can work around vacation. When I called the local Y here and inquired about a swim coach, I was reminded that this is vacation. My explanation that I liked swimming and I should be able to swim on vacation didn't get real far. Maybe I'll swim in front of the condo. Here are a couple pics off the balcony of our condo. The beach in Navarre Florida is beautiful. Having three pairs of swimming goggles worked out well. My son, his friend and I wore them and went diving for hermit crabs. We had a lot of fun. The water here is very clear and very warm. The temperature is also very warm. I ran at 9 am this morning and the heat index was over 100. This afternoon, the heat index was 115. Life is really rough :-) Back to week 7. I took the week off swimming so zero hours there. We left Friday for Navarre so I skipped my ride Thursday night to get ready and my long ride this weekend (since I didn't bring my bike) so I only got one ride in, 1.1 hours there. The bright spot was my running. I'm ramping up for a half marathon the first weekend in October. I managed to run for 4 hours this week including 2 6 mile runs before work and a 6 mile run on a treadmill yesterday morning. My plan leading up to the half marathon is 4 runs per week of 6, 3, 6, then a long run building about a mile a week up to 12 miles. The 6 milers are feeling good, so barring injury, I should be in good shape. Of course, I have an Olympic distance tri in four weeks. Another good lesson learned this month. Watch the overlapping race training schedule.

I've been reading a lot of 70.3 race reports and thinking about doing one next year. If my cousin Len is right, I'll be doing a full IM in 2012. We'll see.