What a month...(June 09)

Well, it's been awhile since I have posted anything, so I thought I would at least put up a quick update on how things are going, and a short race report for the New Balance 1/2 iron on June 21st. So to get started, training is going really well right now, i'm managing to get in some really solid prep for IMC in August and I am certainly feeling stronger this year than I did at any point last year. That being said there are still a good 8 weeks or so until IMC and a lot can happen as far as fitness gains and losses so there is still quite a bit of work to be done. I will be racing the Vancouver half iron this weekend, which I will be going into without any rest, so it should be interesting to see how my body responds to the hard efforts of racing. I have set back to back PB's in the 1/2 iron races i've done this year and am hoping to continue this trend in Vancouver. Something anywhere in the 4:30's would be nice!!! I have also signed up to do the swim and bike leg in a relay of a local olympic distance triathlon on August 3rd. The plan will be to see how hard I can push on the swim and the bike, and then while the rest of the people are racing the run, I will try and just do a steady run and see if I can beat my relay partner. Should be interesting as he generally finishes about 7-8 minutes behind me in 10k races. I will also be doing an open water swim race at Thetis lake at the end of July. I am really looking forward to this as I have never tried a straight up swim race before. I think it will be the 3km race that I enter. As for the New Balance race, the swim was awesome, although I am pretty sure it was short. A 25:50 swim for a half is beyond me. I would guess that it was roughly 100 meters short. I did have a good swim though, and came out only 1:45ish down to the eventual winner Jasper Blake. On the bike I knew I was in for a bit of a rough one as I was sick going into the race and just felt like my legs were gone after the first 10 minutes on the bike, but I managed to push hard and come in just over 2:34, which I have no complaints about. Out quickly onto the run and my plan was to hold 4:30's per km for the first 10k loop and then try and pick it up in the second lap. Well I held on well for the first lap, but fell apart in the second lap a bit. Still finished well with a run time of 1:36:xx and a final total time of 4:40:27(A new PB). All in all a good day, just wish I could have gone into it feeling a bit better and seeing what I could do. On a side note, a couple guys from the group I swim with had great days, Adam O'Meara finshed 4th overall going sub 4:05, and Nick Gottfried absolutely smoked this race going 4:18 and winning his age group. Nice work lads.