The Season's taking shape

Well Tuesday night was the Greater Waterbury YMCA Tri Club kick off meeting. Among other events going on that night was a raffle for free entries into the Rev3 Quassy Half and Olympic, The Pat Griskus Sprint and Olympic and the Hopkins Inn Triathlon at Lake Waramaug ( essentially the revival of the Lake Waramaug Tri on the original route.)

Let's cut to the chase my luck at raffles still sucks and I came up empty handed granted I really could have used that entry into Rev3. I was able to register for the Griskus and Waramaug Sprints with a one night only discount. So my season looks like this so far:

June 16 Patriot Half East Freetown, MA

July 11 26th annual Pat Griskus Sprint Middlebury, CT

July 21 1st Annual Hopkins Inn Tri Washington, CT

My hope is to register for Rev3 Half Quassy before entry fills up so hopefully that will be part of next week's pay well spent. As mentioned earlier all New England race directors decided to front stack all of their Olympic distance races before Age group Nationals in Vermont. So I'm not sure if I'll be doing an Oly this year. I've thought about Rev3 Old Orchard Beach but if I'm going that far North I'd rather race a half. If Quassy fills up then I'll definitely do Old Orchard as I want to do at least two halves this season, and if I have the cash and play my cards right, a full iron distance race to finish off the season.

Next year I'm hoping to either go back to Louisville or another WTC sanctioned event to try to punch my ticket to the big dance, but this year is going to be trying to rebuild to the level I used to be at. When I was hungry, when I could eat lightning and crap thunder, when my goal was clear, Big Island, Pro Card, Big Results. While the pro card maybe a stretch ( more of like a stretch, long bike ride and a plethora of performance enhancing drugs...I mean natural and legal supplements.) I'm hoping for some big results to get me moving in the right direction.

Training's been pretty consistent, the run miles are still a little low but I'll be putting up some big numbers in the next few weeks. But so far I have three races. They are pretty fast courses with pretty stacked fields so the training needs to stay consistent and my attitude needs to get back into that "I can do it because I'm hot fire. And I'll school your ass like Macca" mode instead of the "I'm a whiny coward trying to survive." mode. That's going to be the hard part.

R.D.

Welcome back to the freezer

Well today I decided to put tires to pavement. The temps were near 50F and Steph had left early for play practice so I had the afternoon to myself. Since the weather was nice and I had noting better to do I unhooked the Stomper from the trainer and went out to Middlebury. I hadn't ridden outdoors in Winter since 2009 so I dugout my tattered pair of wool socks and threw another pair of cycling socks over the top hoping that they would keep my feet warm as the only cycling shoes that had decent cleats were my tri shoes. I kept the route simple and did two loops of the Griskus Sprint bike loop. I took the first loop pretty tentatively as I focused on bike handling. It wasn't too windy and once I knew where the sand and pot holes were I was able to open it up. The S-curve at mile 3 and the turn on to Tomilson Rd at mile 4 looked like someone had dumped sandbags down, but there was still enough of a path that to fit the bike safely through. The fact there was very little traffic also helped. I did have an issue with the censor on my bike computer shaking loose on the second loop after hitting a pothole, so a mile and a half of the ride wasn't recorded. I was surprised I didn't bump into more riders but there were several runners. I finished the 20.50 ride in a little under an hour and a half averaging about 15mph. Not fast by any means but not bad for my first outdoor ride since August.

I got back to the car and threw on my Newtons and went for a 5k run down the Griskus Sprint Run course. I kept the pace moderate and I could feel that my feet are adjusting to the Newtons. I'm not ready to tackle any 10 milers yet but I have a feeling if I'm able to get through the next two weeks doing short runs between 3-6 miles I'll be able to get back into the high mile high speed runs. This week I've got some tough workouts on tap in the pool and on the trainer

RD