Recent Training Update

Some updates about my progress in training. I finally hit a huge personal milestone in swimming. I have been swimming 2000 yards or 1.11 miles for the last week during my pool training days. I have been doing it in about 54 minutes. Now that I’m nearly at my max training swim distance I will work on speed more. I know swimming is my weakest of the three sports. I also know I will spend the least amount of time doing it as compared to biking and running. At the Rev3, I only need to know that I will finish by the cutoff time, which I believe is 1 hr and 10 min.

I also made it out into Lake Erie last weekend. It was my first time in open water since last September. It was not pretty. The waves were choppy and 1-2 ft. They were also relentless. I couldn’t get into any sort of rhythm. I normally have decent form but it all goes to pot when I’m in open water like that. I revert to every bad habit and poor form I spent all winter working on improving. When I did get moving I did well for several yards, then a wave would catch me and I’d take in a huge gulp of Lake Erie water.

A couple times I had to stop because I took in so much water I had to hurl it back up. See what I mean by not pretty. To make matters worse, there were about 20 kids playing in the lake while I was swimming and most were focused on me as I was gulping and hurling. I love being judged by a bunch of 9-12 year olds! One even told me that I’m not supposed to do that. Really? You think?

I also later found out that the lake water had 4x’s the e-coli bacteria allowable for swimming. I did not see a red flag at the beach which is surprising because they usually put one out if bacteria is at dangerous levels. Yum. I’m actually glad I managed to get rid of most of it.

My bike is currently at the LBS. I need to pick it up today. I just had some minor tweaking to the rear tire – it needed to be trued. My first race is this weekend and I wanted it to be ready. It is a duathlon – 5K-20 mi -5K in my hometown. I can even ride my bike to get there. I have no excuses – my bike training route is the exact course of this race. I have ridden this route so many times I know where every bump in the road is located. I only have the weather to worry about. There are thunderstorms in the forecast.

I also recently had to get new cleats for my shoes. One of them broke during a training ride about a week ago. I have Time Impact pedals. They came on my bike that I bought on eBay. I’m learning they are an older style pedal. They work just fine but the history of the cleats is poor. From what I was told at the LBS, the cleats were originally made of metal and near indestructible. However, in a future model year, the cleats were made of a resin that was not as durable as the metal and they broke – a lot. That is what made them fall out of favor. I bought a used set of cleats on eBay. However, if another cleat breaks, I’m going to buy a new set of pedals and cleats. Hopefully that won’t be for awhile though. I’m open to anyone’s reviews of the pedals they are using.