Week 38 Training Summary

Week 38 has been a good recovery week for me. I needed a mental and physical break and had planned to take 3 days off after the Lifetime Fitness Triathlon 2 weekends ago but when I got into the 1/2 Ironman I changed my plans and decided to take the break this week. Monday through Wednesday I didn't do any training. It felt weird going 3 days without a bit of training but I believe it is important to have some recovery time when I can allow my body to catch up with all the training and racing I've been doing lately. I raced 4 times in the previous 5 weeks which is more than I would typically recommend. The time off was also necessary to let my achilles tendon heal. I went to the doctor and found out it was nothing too serious...just achilles tendonitis. I had some physical therapy treatments as well as some helpful ART treatment from Dr. Kaminski. It is feeling much better. On Saturday I ran the Bix 7 mile road race with Stephan Marsh, my training partner from last year who was in town for the race. I ran it pretty easy and we ended up running 43:16 which was a nice drop for Stephan as he ran 44:50 a year ago. We did a 50 mile easy bike ride on Sunday morning. My achilles felt pretty good the first half of the race but then started to hurt a bit. It isn't bad so I know it's getting better but it's not to the point where I want to start hammering lots of running on it. I'm hoping to get back into a solid training routine this week and begin a tough 10 day "camp" on Friday assuming my achilles is 100% healed by then. I'm calling this camp "10 Days and 10 Nights" and I'll post more about it in the middle of the week. I'm going to use it as a final huge block of training before school starts in preparation of my last big race on August 30th in Chicago. My goal for that race is to be in the top 10 of the Elite Amateur field and to go under 2 hours for the Olympic Distance for the first time in my career. If I can do that I'll be very satisfied with the progess I've made in the Pro-Qualifying races. So far in the two I've done this year I started with a 20th place finish at Hy-Vee and then moved up to 12th in Minneapolis. If I can finish out the year with a top 10 in Chicago I'll be very excited to get rolling for next year before moving up distance with a focus on the 1/2 Ironman. If I'm feeling 100% healthy this week I'm going to race a small sprint triathlon in DeWitt, IA next Saturday. It's a race I won a year ago about the time I decided to embark on this journey. I'd like to have a chance to defend the title but it will only come if I'm healthy as I don't want to jeopardize my race in Chicago for this one. Thanks for reading! DREAM BIG!