Anti Blerch work

BIKE 1 hr and 18 miles

More accurately, 59:30 and 18 miles. But who's tracking? Indoor ride as it was 6F outside. I did big-ring commercials, alternating sit and stand. This left me pretty tired, I need to eat more carbs.

I worked on my Blerch Infestation over lunch and had a number of surprises. First off, over the past 6 years I see VERY little improvement in my paces. It's actually kinda shocking, I figured I'd have notes about it being a "hilly course" or "windy" or some other excuse, but instead most everything holds steady. So steady in fact that my IMWI and IMCdA swim times were exactly the same at 1:40:43!? I doubted this so much I went from Athlinks to Ironman.com to verify! Really!?

My running times, the best cataloged ones I have, are remarkably similar over time and over distance. Here are the stand-alone half marathon times:

April 2006	2:06:23	9:38:00
April 2007	1:59:37	9:07:00
January 2008	2:10:02	9:55:00
April 2009	1:58:22	9:02:00
November 2009	1:54:38	8:45:00
January 2010	1:58:30	9:02:00

My triathlons aren't any different, here are standard distance olympic and half races, and all full races:

	Total	Swim Time	Swim Pace	Bike Time	Bike Pace	Run Time	Run Pace
May 2008	2:50:52	31:49:00	2:07:00	1:14:58	19.89	59:48:00	9:37:00
May 2011	2:45:10	32:11:00	2:08:00	1:17:34	18.26	55:26:00	8:55:00
September 2008	5:58:56	45:12:00	2:20:00	3:03:12	18.34	2:07:05	9:42:00
July 2009	5:27:29	*32:44:00	*1:41:00	2:49:23	19.84	1:59:03	9:05:00
September 2009	6:07:04	46:31:00	2:24:00	2:59:39	18.70	2:15:35	10:21:00
June 2010	5:48:34	45:38:00	2:21:00	3:03:09	18.35	1:53:05	8:37:00
June 2011	5:53:16	46:49:00	2:25:00	2:50:03	19.76	2:12:37	10:07:00
August 2011	5:50:56	46:24:00	2:24:00	2:56:06	19.08	2:02:04	9:19:00
July 2013	5:50:56	*53:54:00	2:47:00	3:02:51	18.38	1:49:28	8:21:00
June 2014
September 2010	13:42:36	1:40:43	2:36:00	6:45:00	16.59	4:51:54	11:08:00
June 2012	14:05:27	1:40:43	2:36:00	6:59:58	16.00	4:45:49	10:54:00
September 2012	13:23:08	1:37:32	2:31:00	6:29:00	16.82	4:53:49	11:12:00

Look at those swim times! With the exception of the July 2009 swim that was acknowledged to be short, I'm amazingly consistent. Still can't believe the 2010 and 2012 swim times on the fulls...

So back to goal setting. Looking forward with perfect hindsight.

Off to McMillan calculators, in which I'll put in my July 2013 half marathon PR to calculate some goals for Alton and Starved Rock. July was a 1:49. My goal for the March Alton race is <1:45 8:00="" an="" div="" m.="" m="" nbsp="" or="">

Amazingly enough, the recommended workout with those numbers give me my marathon goal of 3:40!! Ok back to reality. The 1 mile recommended workout is 6:32, and yesterday I was doing 7:53. I'm going to have to think on these numbers and how to use them. 

Either way, I have made progress in getting rid of that Blerch that's sitting on my shoulder, telling me I can't or minimal is good enough.