Sunday, July 31, 2011

Change of Plans

I'm just going to dive right in here and give you an updated on the fall racing schedule.

This year I was going to qualify for an Xterra slot.  I was going to travel over to Oahu for the Jamba Juice Mountain Man triathlon at Kualoa Ranch in August and snag myself one of the two F40-44 AG slots.

Endurance and fitness-wise, I could have done it.  Technically, I had some doubts about the bike.  So a couple of weeks ago I had my friend, Matt, who is an 11 or 12-time Xterra qualifier, take me on a serious off-road ride on a loop trail not far from my house.

It was an exhilarating experience!  My first order of business (since I was flying out for vacation to Wyoming later than night) was self-preservation.  I managed to do quite well, but I seriously underestimated my limited mountain biking skills and had my first (of several) "clipped-in" falls on my bike.  One or two rattled my cage (I think I had a total of four or five!), but I managed to get back up, dust myself off, and continue riding on what turned out to be a trail "that was not for sissies" to quote Matt.  This is how I ended up at the end of the day:



 (While relaying the story to another off-road friend via text later that day I was proud to say that "I didn't even cry!")  Suffice it to say that I had my ass handed to me. With this ride in mind, Xterra is off the map for 2011.  I'm going to get more off-road riding in over the next year then qualify next summer.

So what's on the horizon?  Going to get back to more running like I tried to last summer, and seriously thinking about the Maui 1/2 Marathon in September.  I'm going to give the foot a thorough test drive over the next couple of weeks, then decide.  The cool thing is the training plan I am following has Mon/Wed//Fri as "rest or cross-train" days, so I will REST on Monday's and swim on Wednesday's and Friday's to keep my swim chops up.  I'd like to throw in a couple bike rides here and there, but I'll get back to the bike seriously over the late fall and winter since I'll be training for the Honu 1/2 Ironman come January.

What you doing with your summer if your triathlon races are complete?