With J-hawk in the books – I have one more weekend of racing before I can really relax.  That’s not really true – I’ve been relaxing pretty good already.  The weeks since Ironman have been filled with pretty easy workouts.  A few 30 minute swims that are glorfied warmups, short bike rides, short runs – basically just enough to keep the body stimulated.

Normally I take a few weeks totally off after my last race.  This year I don’t think I’m going to do that.  I start my FTP building “plan” on 11/1; which gives me 3 weeks where I’m not going to do much – but I won’t log 21 zeros.

J-hawk was a lot of fun yesterday.  I went into the race with the goal of trying to break an hour - which as best I can tell no one to date has done that (Early or Late) on that course.  I figured a sub 6 minute swim + 33:XX bike + 19:XX run w/ fast transitions would do it.  I left T2 needing to run a 19:11 to pull it off – which is simply very fast on that course.  On a good day – I might have been able to run that fast, but with the abuse I’ve dished out to my legs this month – I was happy to run as fast as I did.

I think for me to really be able to do it, I need to bike 32 something and run a high 19.  That’ll be a good goal to focus on over the winter as I work on building my FTP and run speed – to try and shoot for that at the early bird race.

I’m 100% sure I’ll be running Lakefront next weekend.  I’m still undecided if I’m going to run it with Mary and try to pace her - or if I will run for a PR.

The Cheq 40 was a lot harder than I expected.  Even discounting the difference in bike handling skills required – which I picked up on the fly – the aerobic conditioning “skills” required to excel at mountain bike racing are quite a bit different than what is required to succeed at Ironman.  I realized that I owe MTB folks a great deal more respect than I have given them in the past.

So how’d the race go?  I felt great the first 30 miles or so of the race.  Even headed up Firetower Hill I was doing pretty good – shortly after that I bonked big time.  I started having a really hard time shifting – my arms and hands were exhausted.  I had a continuous soundtrack going of Phil Liggett commentating “Bowe is pedaling squares now.”

The amount of suffering I was going through during the last 8 miles or so on the bike has only been matched once or twice before.  At one point I couldn’t figure out why the rear derailer wasn’t shifting – after 3 or 4 minutes I realized it was because I was in the smallest cog, and I was pushing the wrong lever.

I hated almost every minute of the race – especially towards the end.

It’s too bad my A race falls 4 weeks after the Cheq 40 next year and I’ll have to miss it.  Time to talk Matt into doing it on a tandem in 2012.

Ironman #8 is in the books – and boy was it one for the books.  I ended up with a PR by about 10 minutes – 2nd in my AG, and 23rd overall.  That performance earned me my second trip to Kona.

A big congrats goes out to Matt and Adrienne Amman who both had great days and qualified along with 4 other Gear Grinders – for a grand total of 7 from GG already qualified for 2011.

Go read my race report, it’ll be good reading, I promise.

Even though IMWI was my A race for the year; as Matt is fond of reminding me – it’s really just the beginning of a short stretch of racing.  This coming weekend I am doing the Chequamegon 40 on Saturday, followed by the J-Hawk Late Bird on the 25th, and than closing the year with the Lakefront Marathon here in Milwaukee on October 3rd.

After that I think a few weeks of rest and a vacation will be in order!

Congrats to all the IMWI finishers – enjoy some downtime!

Disgregard if you do not care or are easily intimidated.  This is mainly for my benefit for future reference and to lay out the work.  So it is not going to be written well or in an organized fashion.  It’s a brain dump.

This taper has been interesting.

Key workout #1: 2:30 Bike + 45 minute run (build to HIM) – Quite good. 219 average for rural section of 48 mile

Key workout #2: 4 hour bike + 60 minute run – Bike average, not inspiring.  Run = terrible.  ~200 watts – hips were VERY pinched – had no snap on the bike.  The run is better left undiscussed.

Key Workout #3: 2:30 Bike + 30 minute run – pretty good.  ~210 watt average for rural section of 48 mile – felt “better” than last week.  I don’t recall what the NP was, but I think the lower wattage was due primarily to less wind on the course, which made it hard to find a good gear much of the ride – so I ended up pushing a bit less to keep in a comfortable RPM range.  It also didn’t help that I flatted about 20 minutes into the ride and was like UGH – please don’t be like the last time I flatted.  Made me think about making a hybrid cassettee out of my 11-25 + 12-27.

Key Workout #4: 2:00 Bike + 30 Minute run – Good 40′ interval at IM, with the last 5′ building to HIM + nice run.  Outside of the interval – was a little noddley for what I would normally like to do – route choice was a bit poor for the ride I would have preferred.  Run started to feel really good at the end.

Also in that time I did a 1,000 SCM TT – I dropped in at 12:55; losing a few seconds to a crowded lane and an angry lane mate.  Fastest time I could find on record by 15 seconds.  Was a non-optimum situation as I started my workout got kicked out of the pool due to lightening – went to Panera for coffee and breakfast, and than returned to the Y 3 hours later or so.

Broken Ironman Swim (50/300/500/3×1000): 54 minutes flat, subtract rest and it was 52:40

Bike last night with some short intervals above HIM, but below FTP – Good.  Run after – good (but what the hell it’s not November yet it was freaking cold out)

I made a last minute change to my bike setup due to how I felt during BT #2 – I raised my bars up 1 cm, and adjusted my saddle position a small amount to shift my center of weight on the bike for handling reasons.

I also adjusted my cleats a bit forward – I discovered last night (9/7) that I was a bit rearward with my cleat placement in comparison to with my SPD-SL pedals.

I think the call to revise the taper was good.  Things are starting to feel good and fall into place.

I’ve been all over the place mentally and emotionally.  Saturday – I was nearly in tears because of how I was feeling in workouts – crappy feeling even though times/power/pace was OK – so I decided it wasn’t worth sacrificing coffee for two weeks – so I hopped back on the wagon – and immediately my feel swim/bike/run improved.  Don’t do that again.

With only a few days to go – I’m feeling cautiously optimistic.  The weather looks OK (but there is an increasing chance of rain), I should be getting a bomb-diggity looking Tri-suit in the mail today, I’m starting to feel pretty fresh and snappy – and most importantly I’ve got a bomb-ass beard growing.