Today (May 2nd) is Andrew's 11th birthday!!!

What an AWESOME experience we had down in St. Petersburg this weekend!

The details are posted here, but the summary is 2:48:38. Thanks to the excellent coaching from Team in Training, I was fully prepared and the race went freakishly-according-to-plan. I feel like I might have been able to go faster at times but I stayed with the plan and have no complaints. But, I know what I want to improve for next time :D

Thanks to everyone for all of their support (financial and moral)! I hope we'll be able to do the same (or better?) next year!

OK - I have 2 weeks (13 days, really) to race day. Though the fundraising page doesn't say it, I crossed my minimum fundraising threshold on Saturday AM - so THANKS!!! If it adds some incentive, every penny of every dollar given from now on goes 100% to the LLS to use for patient support services, research, etc.

I posted mid-week, last week, so this is an abridged log...

Training Log:

4/12 (Thu): Day off (planned)

4/13 (Fri): Interval bike ride (trainer). 10 minute warmup, 1 minute hard/1minute easy x 30, 10 min cool down. No idea on the distance (measuring device is on the front wheel).

4/14 (Sat): Brick. ~1hr of hilly loops around Central Park, then 6.4 miles of hilly and stairsy running in Riverside Park. Oooh, my calves are still sore.

4/15 (Sun): 1.5 mile solo swim, just steady - first mile at race pace. If I do that time on race day, I'll be really pleased.

Lots of work, Easter and travel have made workouts, and updates, more difficult to fit in. Obviously, the workouts are more important than the updates ;)

Training Log:

4/2 (Mon): Well deserved, scheduled, day off.

4/3 (Tue): Unscheduled day off. I had to attend an school event with my son, and it ran long. So, I couldn't get to the pool before it closed.

4/4 (Wed): Group Trainin Session - ran some stairs and lots of hills in Central Park, about 5.5 miles total.

4/5 (Thu): Another unscheduled day off. I don't remember why, at the time of writing :P

4/6 (Fri): Solo swim. Warmup, drills, then 6x200yd pieces, then cool down. The 200yd peices were 50yds breast-stroke with a pull bouy (so no kicking), then 150yds of free. This turned out to be harder than I was expecting for reasons that are now obvious (makes your arms tired).

4/7 (Sat): Brick! Alex and I were advised to take a nice ~20mile route right near my mother-in-law's home in CT, that turned out to be a raging hill-fest. Great workout, and really a nice ride. The 2 mile run also went really well (8:34 avg pace)!

4/8 (Sun): Easter. Planned run didn't happen, due to family obligations.

4/9 (Mon): Got up and went to the 6am spin class.

4/10 (Tue): Despite flying out to SFO, getting to bed at 1:30 PST, and then waking up at 6:00 EST, I still did my run. I would like to have run outside, but it was rainy. I couldn't do it. But I did do the run.

4/11 (Wed): Solo Swim. 35 minutes, but I have no idea how far I went. I THINK it was about 1.25 miles. Why no clue? I swam in an endless pool - sort of a hot-tub that has water flowing continuously. So, you swim to stay in place as the water moves. Just keep swiming, just keep swimming... Try not to bash your fingers into the metal fins in front of you.

4 weeks from now, I'll officially be a triathlete! If someone would please buy our old house, I can get ahead of myself a bit and start looking into summer tri's - definitely liking this, but it's a major time-suck!

Training Log

Mon 3/26: Scheduled day-off (woohoo!)

Tue 3/27: Solo swim. Warmup and then some drills. Then 5x300yds at increasing pace. Then some cool-down laps. ~2600yds total.

Wed 3/28: Interval run. Half-mile at fast pace, 2 minute recovery, repeat at increasingly faster pace - four total. Then 15 minutes at steady pace.

Thu 3/29: Bike intervals on the trainer for an hour. No feedback, so no idea how far/hard I went... weeeeee!!!

Fri 3/30: Swim. Drills again, and then 45 minutes of steady swimming at a good pace. I have NO idea how far I went, as I lost count after 20 laps, and decided not to bother trying to figure it out. I did work on my form and dream about winning the lottery (booooo).

Sat 3/31: Warmup, then 10k at fast (not fastest) pace, then cool down. A bit under 7.5 miles total.

Sun 4/1: Bike ~18 miles. Legs were tired from saturday run, and the wind picked up about 6 miles in. I would have liked to make it a longer ride, but have a wife and kids and other stuff going on, so am happy to have gotten this much of a ride in.

Fundraising is coming along very nicely, thanks to all who've donated! The official number is at $2891, but I have ~$75 in my pocket, ~$1000 of corporate matching en route, and a promised $1000 from some very generous people with more than one connection to the cause. This puts MY fundraising effort at almost $5000 but, for those who are still considering, every penny counts!

My teammates who are going to Hawaii for the Lavaman triathlon are tapering. Not so for the St. Anthony's folks. I'm not sure if that's better for us or them... since we started training at the same time, we have an extra 5 weeks of prepping!

Training Log:

Mon 3/19: Scheduled day off. Earned, as usual.

Tue 3/20: Timed 1-mile swim in GTS. My time wasnt what I would have liked, but I've managed to rationalize 2 minutes off of it.

Wed 3/21: Due to work/family scheduling, I couldn't get out to run until 9:30 at night. So, I only managed to get in a 2 mile run before giving up. I count getting out the door at that hour to be a triumph...

Thu 3/22: In-door brick. 1+ hours in the spin class, then 2+ miles (20 minutes) on the treadmill. This was the source of my current training "injury".

Fri 3/23: Swim (solo). 4x50yd of finger-tip drag with a bouy. Then 4x400yds at fastest sustainable pace. Then some more drills and cool-down.

Sat 3/24: 27 mile bike around (and around and...) SUNY Purchase's campus. Not nearly as much wind as the last time, and I have to be pretty pleased with the time - especially with the hills.

Sun 3/25: 10k (6.2 mile) run on treadmills. I had to switch twice from marginally broken machines, but managed to do so quickly without wiping out.