Dana Point Turkey Trot

What better way to start off Thanksgiving day, then with a race? This was my second year running at the Dana Point Turkey Trot . Brittany ran the race with me and although she has ran 2 half marathons, this was her first 10K distance race. She wanted to come in under an hour and was a little nervous about achieving her goal. She said that it was more fun doing races before she started setting goals for herself, and I understand. But, I guess that it is inevitable that as we progress, we gauge our progress with benchmarks. So, I said “it is the effort and the training that matters” and not to worry too much about the time. With all that said she came in at 59:31 and she was elated! She looked great and said that she felt fantastic.

Last year my time was 56:56, so I was definitely looking to beat that time. At this time last year, I was knee deep n marathon training and my weekly mileage was averaging over 40 miles a week. Right now I am doing between 20 and 25 miles a week since I am training in 3 different sports. So, I wasn’t entirely sure what I would finish at. I was very pleased with my time of 52:51. I felt really good the whole race. In fact, I felt much better than I remember feeling last year. I guess all of the cross training for Triathlon and the increased fitness does spill over to the other sports disciplines.

There were over 3,000 people at the race. It is a beautiful course along the coast and the race is run very well. My buddy Rich O’Neill was there and he finished in 51:21. What a great day! We plan on making this a Thanksgiving holiday tradition.
After the race, we had an amazing Thanksgiving dinner at my parents house with a TON of food and great times with the family. I wish I had some pictures of everyone that was there (around 20) but I did get a shot of the food or what was left of it. Thanks Mom for another great Thanksgiving. Holidays are always special at my parents house.
My training is going very well. This week breaks down as follows:
2:30 Swim
5:55 Bike
4:05 Run
For a total of 12:30

My biggest challenge has been swimming. I never skate on a scheduled cycling or running workout . But, I have to confess that the same has not been true when it comes to the swim. I would try to figure out why. I would get in the pool and just stand there, trying to get motivated to swim for 45 minutes to an hour. It’s not that I am really bad at it. I have only been swimming for about 6 months and I do okay. I learned fairly quickly and it’s not that dreadful, but still I haven’t found myself looking forward to it like I do the other two sports. After giving it a lot of thought, I figured out that the difference has been the lack of a good way to monitor my progress and stats from my swim sessions. So, I bought an Timex Ironman stopwatch that keeps track of my laps and (due to a recent update to my logging software) I am able to manually enter my swim workouts and keep track of my 100 meter splits and pace. This has made all the difference in the world. I love stats and visually seeing numbers. It’s working and I have kept up with my scheduled swims for the last two weeks and I am actually starting to look forward to my swim sessions. Good thing because the Ironman is less than 20 weeks away and I was starting to get a little worried whether or not I was going to be ready. The plan is to get good enough to survive the swim and finish in about 90 minutes or so, saving plenty of energy for the bike and the run. My 100 meter splits are in line with that goal so I am feeling much better about it.

Next weeks training... 14:30. Man this is getting fun. I have never been happier in my life. Triathlon is the greatest sport.

Paul
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