Less than 4 months!

Ironman LP is 4 months from yesterday. I'm getting excited! Knock on wood, but the training is coming along well, including the running. I had a great hill repeat run workout with E and a few of the other CTC members on Wednesday night. We did this hill in the Flats that we used to do last year. All 6 of the repeats were faster than any I did last year. Sweet!

In other news, I swam my farthest yet, 3800 yards, this morning. I think my coach thought that I didn't want to go past 3500 yards, because when she'd say 3500-4000, I'd only do 3500. The truth is I simply was having trouble getting the yardage in during the masters workout. So, she assigned the following workout, which I did in my gym's 20-yard pool:

800 warm-up
2 x 400 pull (breathe 3,5,7,9 by 100)
4 x 200 negative split
8 x 100 race effort with 15 seconds in-between each
400 hard race effort
200 cool down

Her comment was "do this on your own and get psyched about going long". I did do it on my own and I am psyched about going long! It took me exactly 90 minutes to do the workout including the rest breaks and for the laps I timed, I was fairly consistent at a 2:05-2:10 per 100 pace. Of course, that was in a 20-yard pool, but I'm still happy with it. If I could maintain that pace at Ironman, I would be around my goal time of 90 minutes. I've still got 4 months left to build that speed/endurance.

I contemplated doing the swim at masters, but I didn't want to screw anybody else's workout up by not doing the posted workout. It turns out that it was a good plan, because they switched the CSU pool back to 50 meters. Now, I like the longer lanes, but because they have to reserve 2 of the lanes for CSU staff/students, it compresses me into the lane with much faster people, which stresses me out. It would be nice if the coach actually assigned lanes by people's swim speed instead of having people seed themselves. I'm not sure what he does other than write on the chalkboard. Oh well, I'll be outside in the lake or outdoor pool soon enough and I'm sure the pressure from the faster swimmers will be beneficial.

The only down side of doing today's swim at my gym was the attire of the grumpy dude in the lane next to mine. Not only did his Speedo droop, but when he sat down, his entire butt was on display through the threadbare material. I think I shall be scarred for life.

This weekend, there is no swimming on the schedule, but I do have a 3-hour trainer ride (LP course) on Saturday followed by a 45-minute brick run and a 1:40 run on Sunday. There will be no sleeping in for me unfortunately, but hopefully, I can catch a nap here and there. My brother and I are going to see "The 300" on Saturday afternoon after my brick and I pray I don't fall asleep during the movie. I hear it is a good one.

Okay, must get back to doing what I get paid to do. Florida pictures and such should be posted this weekend. Happy Friday!