New game plan. Again *sigh*. I didn't start the year with as solid of a race schedule as I have the past few years. Last year was tough enough, not selecting an "A Race" at the beginning of the year, and then suffering a season ending knee injury in June. This year, I have toyed with a number of scenarios. Of course, my dream race was to get to do the 250K again, but that event has crossed the rainbow bridge. Then, I eyeballed the Anvil Ironman that is not to far from here, at Hagg Lake. But I haven't been able to get my running to be injury free, so any marathon distance is not in the cards. Besides, the Anvil is multiple laps over a small course. No adventure.
Since I haven't been able to get my legs to cooperate, I have pushed my swim training to the fore. This had me thinking that a main event for the summer would be the Portland Bridge Swim. 11 miles on the Willamette River, now that would be an adventure. But, the fine print on the application states that you have to have completed a recorded swim of at least 4000 yards in the 18 months before the race. That disqualifies me. The realization was a bit of a hit.
I have been scrambling to come up with some motivation for my training.
There is a swim event at Hagg Lake in late June. It has three different distances you can swim: 800m, 2000m, and 4000m. You can swim all three for the same price. I think this will be my mid-summer goal: all three races.
Then, in September there is the best in The West Tri. I have known for a while that it will be my "A Race" this year. Looking over the race results from the year I did this event I was surprised at how close the time were between all the finishers in my age group. So, this year I am not going just to finish and beat my previous time. This year I am going and pushing myself to place in my age group. It is not impossible. I am already a faster swimmer and biker than I was then. And if I don't do something stupid (like run two half-marathon trail races in the middle of the summer) I know I can better my run time. The alst time my legs were cramping so badly from over-use injuries that I would run 50 paces, cramp horribly, walk 100 paces until the cramp eased up, then run until I cramped. The cramps started at mile 3. It was a long, miserable 13 miles.
So, that is the current edition of the Game Plan. Hagg Lake Open Water Swim Races, and The Best in The West Half-Ironman. Then there is also the Firefighter Stair Climb the weekend after my half. September will be fun.
Now that I have a somewhat solid Plan, I can focus my training. The key this year is Speed.
No comments:
Post a Comment