Energetic morning. And a review of 4 years ago in June.

SWIM 1500y in 35 mins, 2x[3x150] varying 150's

The plan called for 4x but I did what I had time for. It's DH's last day off in a 2 week rest, so I offered a plan of going to the gym then the City Diner for brekkie. I'm feeling awesome so far all morning! Is it those magical energy shakes!? ;)

Tomorrow I'm planning a long bike ride, I feel like I'm behind on my bike distances. I was going to run with TV, but plans keep changing at home. With DH at work, and the Potosi swim race on Sunday, and stuff to do, I'm crunched a bit. So the plan for now is see what (if any) contractors want or need access tomorrow morning, then head out for a solo long ride.

My plan for this year was to alternate group and solo rides. Both have pros and cons, and usually I tend towards group rides. But races aren't group rides! I need to practice my own pace and motivating. Hence a long solo ride tomorrow. I've already turned down a hills fest with LC, but it was "only" 50 miles long. I need more miles , butI don't need hills.

I got to wondering at what point in previous years I've started aiming for century distances. The easiest comparison is IMWI 2010, which was only 2 weeks later in the year than MiTi. So I pulled out the printed blog book and started looking for my "where was I at 4 years ago" answers. I couldn't find the exact week because I was calculating wrong...but in my brief summary I was surprised, somewhat disappointed too. I found a 1 mile TT test coming in around 6:30. That I was running the Thursday group runs at about the same pace now (huge difference though in effort, in 2010 I was writing about lots of effort and fatigue to hit that pace), and a lot of missed swims.

I had to do some more advanced (web) calculating this morning to find the week in question. Turns out "now" for 2010 was around June 24th. I had just raced Kansas, recovered, then went home for a weekend, so it won't be too easy to draw parallels, but I'll find what I can. So where was I?

I was thinking that I was a more efficient runner at a faster pace.  The next Thursday I did a PR paced loop of the park: 12.4 miles in 1:40!   A few days after that I rode 110 miles, my first 100+ ride, on July 3rd.

Should I take this to mean that in the next week or so I should be doing a century? So far this year I've been doing only 50-65 milers. Yes most certainly I need to bump it up! But not too fast, er, too soon I mean. Go as fast as you can! But not too quickly! ;)

And just as importantly, I need to start nailing my bike nutrition. This is week 3 of 9 in the Build phase, by now I should have things in place but judging by last weekend my bike nutrition is still weak. And not surprisingly, I was voicing similar concerns 4 years ago!