Weekend Recap

Friday evening I wound up at Mentor Headlands for an open water swim. Wanted to do a swim and bike but I just didn't have the time earlier so it was just a swim LATER in the evening. Swim went well. I ended up swimming for 45 minutes straight, twice the time and distance that I'll be doing next week in the Olympic race at Greater Cleveland.

Saturday Tony and I went out on the road bikes and our intention was to do most of the major climbs around here. We rode out into Kirtland Hills and climbed the hills on the way out. Got to Baldwin and climbed Booth to Kirtland Chardon and up to the Arburetum. Took Sperry to Mitchells Mills to Mentor. Screamed down Mentor until the up part started and climbed pretty strong all the way to the part where we went down again. Rode back Pinecrest, Hermatige to Girdled and climbed Girdled up past Big Creek and out to Kniffen. Rode the downhill section of the Leroy TT course to Taylor and headed North to Blair and home. Got 51 miles in, in 2:48 with 1,500' of climbing. Good ride and we felt strong.

Sunday morning we headed out on the TT bikes to get an Olympic distance transition workout in. As we were heading out on our main course we saw Karen, Eddie and Juan. We stopped to talk for a few minutes and found out they were heading back West after a 70 mile bike and then they were going to get in a 9 mile run. Ironman workouts sure are tough!

Tony and I got the 27 mile bike in, in 1:15:30 and felt REALLY good. Didn't kill ourselves but just rode a nice constant pace and then did a quick transition and it was off on the run course. The reason for the hilly bike on Saturday was to run today on somewhat fatigued legs. Tony is doing the Sprint distance race next weekend at the GCT so he ran slightly longer than 5k. I tried to convince him that running 6 miles with me was going to make him stronger for next week, but it didn't work, he said that the hilly bike we did yesterday served it's purpose. As we split off from each other I called him a sissy. He responded back with something, but I didn't hear what he said, probably for the best. I did my 6 mile run and it was starting to get pretty warm out there. I finished the transition run in 43 minutes flat and tried to keep my hr in zone 3-4 along the way, but when it gets hot, my heart rate really starts to creep up, so I just backed it down and saved myself. Good work today.

Good weekend of training and the weather was beautiful and everything went well.
Hope all went well for those that raced the Zoar Road Race today. I know some from the team made the trip down today. Hope everything was good for those that raced in the Cleveland Triathlon in downtown Cleveland today too.

Next up, Olympic distance race at the Greater Cleveland Triathon on Sunday.

Ciao