Epicman? I don't think so...

There is going to be an unofficial epicman in Gatineau park tomorrow. While I'm no where near ready to complete this sort of competition, I'm going to show up, swim and bike a few loops.

For anyone reading this (I doubt it... I mostly blog to myself, I know) here are the basics

• Swim 7 am from O'Brian: 30 minutes out, 30 minutes back. Everyone ends at 8 am.
• T1: make your way over to you car at O'Brian that has your bike and your partner's bike in it
• Bike ~100miles: Start at O'Brian and then do 6 loops with detours to Champlain on Loop 2 and loop 4 for your nutritional support. On the 6th loop you will go down to the bottom of Pinks Lake and come back up to complete the course at O'Brian
• T2: At O'Brian, put bikes in car and change to running gear
• Run ~ 9K: Run out on Meech Lake Road to bottom of Fortune. Run up Fortune Lake Parkway to Champlain Parkway, turn right and run all the way to Champlain Lookout finish line
  

I wish I had it in me to do the full thing, but I really don't think I do. There is always next year.

First tri of the season coming up...

The Meech Lake triathlon is coming up this weekend, and while I'm looking forward to it, I can't say i'm prepared.

I've been suffering through a groin and a lower leg problem for the past few weeks, which means my run on Saturday will be pretty weak. Thankfully, it's only 6.4km which I should be able to get through without too many problems.

Still, I'm setting some high expectations for myself. I finished last year with a time of 1:55 (ish... my finish didn't get recorded) and even with my injuries, I want to take 15 minutes off that time. Here's how I expect to do it:

• Swim faster: I finished the swim in 21 minutes last year and this year I think I can get that down to somewhere between 16 and 18
• Don't lose shoe location after swim: there's a .5km run from the beach to T1 along the road, so they recommend leaving shoes on the beach for the run. I couldn't find mine last year.
• Power up the first hill: The course is damn hilly, and since I know I can't run, I'm going to gun it on the hills. I tried it this weekend and managed to finish the course 10 mins faster than last year, after cycling 30km.
• Do the run in 1km intervals: I found I can still run intervals fairly well, even though I can't run 3km straight. I figure 6 intervals at about 5 min/km should get me through the run in about 35 mins, which is about 5 mins faster than last year

Sounds easy, but we'll see how it goes. Either way, it's such a beautiful course, and the post race food is fantastic, so I'll have a good time.

Setbacks

So much for keeping my blog up to date... almost three weeks since my last post, and lots has happened.

Training is not going as well as I would have liked. My swimming is the only thing that has been fairly consistant, which is surprising, because I've decided not to join masters for the summer, and just swim on my own.

I haven't been able to run since the Ottawa Race weekend, which is partly to do with a mix of groin and IT Band pain, but also because I've been pretty lazy over the past few weeks. I'm 13 weeks out from my peak event of the season, and I'm starting to get a little concerned.

Lastly, I crashed my bike last Thursday, so that's out too. I need a new wheel, tire, and front derailer, but at least I didn't get run over, while laying on the road during rush hour.

So it's time to get serious. To help fight my laziness, I've joined a weekly indoor brick workout, at my local tri club. I also took my wetsuit out of storage and have left it out for me to look at so that I'm tempted to finally get outside to swim. Meech Lake is only 3 weeks away, and I really want to improve on my time from last year.