Eagleman final preparations

Eagleman half ironman is one week from today. It will be the fourth time I tackle that course.

I had optimistically planned a tough two weeks of training immediately after Columbia two weeks ago. When I made that ambitious plan I had forgotten about all the end-of-school activities, field trips, art show, twin birthday, doctor visits, etc., that would interfere. That's life!!

So here's what I actually got done:

Swimming: 5000 yards planned, 2600 yards done
Cycling: 175 miles planned, 120 miles done
Running: 34 miles planned, 24 miles done

I still have 6 days to get in some easy taper workouts - which will probably bring up the running total 10 more miles to the goal, but I'll probably only get perhaps another 800-1500 yards of swimming and 10-25 miles of cycling done this coming week. That will have to do!

I am very encouraged by today's ride: 56.3 miles at a reasonably comfortable pace (heart rate average about 5-10 bpm below my planned racing heart rate) on a hot, humid morning that ended up equaling last year's Eagleman pace (16.4 mph). I'll be pleased if I can replicate that on race day - but especially pleased if I can follow it up with an actual half marathon run instead of a nine mile run and a four mile bonk. If I can skip the bonk part, I should be able to (finally) break 7 hours - but that's still a big IF since I've lost so much training time this spring.

I still need to give Buttercup a good pre-race cleaning and swap out her climbing cassette for the flatlands cassette. I'd like to try the new wheel cover but I may not have time to put it on and test it before race day, and I don't want to race on it without fully testing it first. But the extra bit of gearing will help - if I have a lovely tailwind on race day next Sunday I want to make full use of it!