Reporting For Duty

It's a sunny tuesday morning here in Presque Isle.
There's no doubt in my mind that Spring is only a few weeks away.
I'm kind of sad to see winter go. Typically around this time of March, I'm raring to get on my bike and start a new season, but I'm enjoying winter in the county. The skiing is absolutely phenomenal, and for once in my life, I've found a network of people that are amazing to train with.
Pretty much on any given day, I can call someone up and go skiing, biking, running, or swimming. And everyone is awesome.

Race Report
Von, Jon, and I traveled downstate on March 1st to give the first-ever Maine Winter Triathlon a go.
It consisted of a 4k Snowshoe/10k Bike/6K Skate Ski.
We kind of decided to do it on a whim. Von and I had only run on snowshoes a couple of times, and it actually proved to be one of the hardest legs of the race. I had all I could do to keep my heart rate from going through the roof, so when I got to the bike, it was pretty much damage control.
I tried to push the red-line as much as I could without going into debt, knowing the ski was to follow. I got off the bike in 6th overall.
I hoped I could make some ground up, knowing that fewer people can skate ski as well as bike and run. It's a much more technical sport.
I skied for most of the 6K by myself. In the last kilometer, I was rewarded by the sight of 2 athletes skiing slowly up the hill ahead. I passed the first one quickly, but the other guy heard me coming and wasn't exactly willing to let me overtake him.
He shot off like a rocket, and I had to go to the well to stay with him.

On the homestretch, I skied on his tails, but he wouldn't let me pass, so I pulled into the tracks on the right and double-poled past him, just in time to cross the finish line in 4th overall.
It was a really great day. I think we're going to go down and do the whole New England Series next year. It's a great way to stay in a triathlon frame of mind in the off-season without getting burned out mentally.

Training Report
My training last week was not ideal. I just felt tired. Perhaps it was after-effects from the race. I only trained for 3.75 hours, and took 4 days completely off. I think I just needed to recharge my batteries a little bit. I have those weeks here and there.
When doing high volume training at a low intensity, you tend to not realize how tired you are until it hits you all at once.

Right now, I'm just working on getting to a place in my training where I can do a 6 hour training day with no issues- ie: IT band, Achilles, and Quadriceps tendon.

Realistically, I am about 3-4 weeks away from that. Once I achieve that aerobic and biomechanical base, I can start putting longer days back to back, which will happen midsummer. After that, I can start putting LONG days in- 10, 12, 14 hour workouts...and working on my sleep-deprivation training...yay.

The day is calling, and it's telling me the weather is perfect for a run today...maybe even minus the tights.

I'm signing off, quoting an old aquaintence, Damien, who just happens to be the World Bench Press Champion(181 lbs, and benches 605!!)..."Ain't nuthin' to it but do it!".

Awesome.

Kale