The Magic Happens Here

I had a professor in college that was fond of presenting the entire picture of what he was going to teach us, multiple times through out the semester.  He would throw up a power point the depicted the overall scheme of things, with what we knew, and were about to learn in the next few classes, and the end result detailed.  With the steps inbetween depicted by a little cloud with the label "The Magic Happens Here."

Since I’m doing Ironman Wisconsin in about 18 weeks, I’m in that cloud.  The next 15 weeks or so will play a big part in how the race goes.  I’ve spent the winter and spring training and building up motivation to train.

So far this week has gone well, my swimming has been very lack luster.  I feel really weak and uncoordinated in the pool.  I’ve made an effort to just get the distance and time in, hoping that it will just return with a week or two of patience.

I did a race over this past weekend, a sprint.  It had an 500 yard indoor swim, a 13.7 mile bike, and a 3.2ish mile run.  I did exactly as I realistically expected.  My swim was blazing fast, at the timing checkpoint I was 5:41, but more importantly I was climbing out of the pool at 5:17; a personal best by at least 25 seconds!!! I may have burned a little two much on the swim, because my bike and run weren’t real great, but that also could have been a result of taking several weeks easy since [before] the half marathon.  All in all though it was  fun race, and it was only April!  Copy and paste of the summary of the Race from WKO+ is below.

Duration:             35:32Work:              577 kJTSS:               51.1 (intensity factor 0.928)Norm Power:   276VI:                   1.02Pw:HR:           -7.42%Pa:HR:            -5.46%Distance:        13.838 miMin     Max    AvgPower:            0         709     270     wattsHeart Rate:     0         240     161     bpmCadence:        33       123     85       rpmSpeed:            7.5      35.3    23.4    mphPace               1:42    7:59    2:34    min/mi