Guelph Sprint... 2 days out.

Yup, Guelph is this Saturday... and the weather is looking quite poor. Or pour might be a better word to use... as in, it will be pouring all day. Good times. At least the temperature will get up into the teens, not like Muskoka last September when it rained and the temp was single digits.

But - the distance is quite short, so I hope to just power through everything and get some dry clothes on for the trip home.

I don't have a detailed plan for this one, maybe other than to try to enjoy every minute of it, rain or not. I guess I am thinking/planning a little bit about a few things... like, I want to swim the shortest distance possible. That is, I want my sighting to be perfect. I always seem to defer to others when it comes to position in the water... jogging in when everyone else takes off, or staying off the buoy line so that the fastest swimmers from the wave after can easily pass. This usually results in me taking the turns very wide and swimming a longer distance than I'm supposed to. Well you know what? Screw that. Although I will not take off from the front, I am going to start right on the inside... if any fasties from the wave after want to swim over me, they had better be prepared to receive an all-out under water assault. Oh, that's right - I'm no one's whipping boy.

One other thing I've been thinking about is the transitions. I am really, really slow, especially in T1. In the past I've always taken a extra time to try to catch my breath after arriving at my bike, because my heart rate always feels like it is somewhere in the 2750 bpm range. But using the theory of "always moving forward," this time I'm going to keep moving, moving, moving. Once I'm on the bike and away, I can always coast if I need to. I'll still be rolling forward instead of standing still in T1. Also... I've never done it in a race, but I was thinking about starting with my shoes already on the bike. But, with crappy weather here this week, I wasn't able to practice any bike mounts outside at all... so I'll have to see about that one. I mean, rolling forward (even slowly) and doing up your shoes has got to be faster than standing there and doing them up, right?

Mainly I'm just trying to worry about the things that are within my control. The weather is not one of those things, so I'll deal with whatever is thrown my way.

As usual, time will tell.

A lack of consistency.

Ever since the Mother's Day half-marathon, my training has been less than enthusiastic. I guess I could be much more specific by saying my bike training has been less than enthusiastic. This was brought very clearly into focus during the recent Milton Triathlon. The bike course is quite a challenge, with some steep rollers and one massive hill to tackle. It was the biggest hill I'd ever seen, including Muskoka 70.3. I didn't see it at the time, but checking my computer later, I hit more than 74 kph (>46mph) on the way down... and that was not in the aerobars. I was scared shitless. Anyway, I had never seen the course before, and it wrecked me. It was only 30k, but it chewed me up and spit me out, and then kicked me a few times when I was down. I'm pretty sure I also heard it laughing as I was packing my car for the trip home.

Obviously I would have been better off not entering the race, and of course, the responsibility lies with me. I let my bike fitness drop off while training for the half marathon. I had a great race on Mother's Day, but now I'm suffering the consequences. Training-wise, I'm back on track, and I'm hoping that I can build back up to the level I should be at. I'm going to enter a Sprint on June 20 (750m, 20k, 5k) to assess where I'm at, so I'm hoping to hit all my workouts until then and have a solid effort, especially on the bike. I'm already feeling better and more comfortable in the saddle compared to the race, so it seems like things are moving in the right direction.

As usual, time will tell.