Monday, September 26, 2011

Switching gears



Time to change gears I suppose. Triathlon season is over. I ended it with the Branson Sprint that ran along with the 70.3. Now it's time to switch to 1/2 marathon training. I think I've lost a little speed over last year, but I'm ahead on getting my miles up. I had a small setback this week by means of a cold and a week without training, but I should be on track to make my goal without a lot of trouble.

Don and I had an epic MTB ride a few weeks ago. The new White River Trail near Table Rock Dam is great. It was challenging, but not impossible. I crashed a few times, but nothing serious. I did some of my best riding on the last 1/4 of the trail. We will definitely be back.

Branson Sprint thoughts; I would have had a very good race had it not been for my back tire going flat at about mile 8. I had given up my repair kit to another rider who had nothing to repair his own flat. I rode about another half mile and had my own flat. Luckily, I came upon some others that were repairing their flats and they had spares to help me along. It cost me about 15-20 minutes. I would have more than met my sub 2 hour goal had it not been for the flat. I did my first wet suit swim, and I really liked it after I got over the constricted feeling. Thanks to Pete for the loan. I sighted on the wrong buoy for a while and that cost me a couple of minutes. I had a great swim though. The run was really good and I felt great after the halfway point. It poured rain soon after the sprint was over and rained on a lot of the 70.3 athletes. I think most were through T2 before the rain started. Several folks I know were doing the 70.3 and I hope they met their goals.