Oh my gosh. My big race for the year is just around the corner and I haven't told you all about it. Are you so excited to read this?!?? OMG.
But seriously. We have lots of goshes and gollys and oh boys up in this household. No potty mouth talk with a 3 year old running loose.
This Saturday is the
Lake Logan Half-Iron triathlon near the Asheville / Hendersonville / Waynesville area of North Carolina.
Lake Logan is in the Blue Ridge Mountain range, meaning it is much cooler than the external east coast. Much more mountainy, too. While the 'feels like' temps have been regularly hitting 100+ in the Raleigh area, Lake Logan is predicted to have a high of 77 on Saturday. I think that's super neat!
It is a beautiful lake and the whole area is really nice. We usually get over this way one or two times a year for a weekend visit. Asheville is the bomb for beer knurds, and there are tons of hiking, running, and cycling options. The
Waynesville Recreation Center has a fun kids pool and nice lap pool. We spent at least three of our anniversaries around here. We did look at moving to Asheville when we relocated from Florida to NC, but opted for the larger Raleigh area for more work possibilities.
Anyway. There's a race. I'm doing it. Training has been going well. A few ups and downs but mostly a steady progression of fitness. Riding at a moderate hard level for 56 miles does not induce mild panic, like it did earlier this year. Running comfortable fast for 13 miles doesn't make me break out in a cold sweat. I have been mildly aware of eating a good diet and am closer to ideal race weight than I have been the past couple of years, which makes running and riding up hill a lot easier. I did a 3:19 300 yard swim a couple days ago without killing myself. So all in all, I think I will do somewhere between pretty good to really good.
I would tell you all about my power numbers on the bike, but instead of getting a power meter this year I got us a summer family vacation and another weekend at Tweetsie Railroad in a couple weeks. Boom.
The swim is flat and will be wetsuit legal as it is mountain-stream fed by some super duper chilly water. The bike is mostly rolling/peaceful with just a couple of tougher climbs as they manage to stay in the valleys for the majority of the course. The run is about a 2-4% grade for 3+ miles and then back down, then do it again. My goal is to be able to push the last 3 miles downhill without feeling nauseous. I don't know about you, but my Half-Ironman events are almost always about managing effort and staying on top of nutrition so that I can race the last few miles rather than survive.
Time predictions:
swim: 26-27
bike: 2:35 +/- 10 minutes (not sure how tough it will actually be)
run: 1:37 +/- 6 minutes
I did break down and buy a
Wheelbuilder Aerojacket and a new Mavic Cosmic Elite a couple of weeks ago. My old
Renn disc has just seen its day - 12+ years of racing. Had a lot of fast races on that thing! The Mavic Elite has some
good wind tunnel results against much more expensive wheels, and the Aerojacket runs 100 bucks. So I get about 90% of the gain of a disc with about 12% of the cost. The rest can go to Junior's college fund. I tested it out at the
Buckner Mission Man Triathlon a couple weekends ago and it did well.
Holy moly, I love to hate writing these things. My post race report will be entirely in haiku form.
Peace!
