Pre-Race Plan for my Injured Self

We've been on a family vacation for a few days. Here are 3 quick photos:

Henry and I on the jet ski.


A "dude bath" after a day in the lake.


Monday night, a storm knocked a tree onto the roof of the cabin, and it left a 10 foot hole.
Water was pouring into our kitchen all night! So what do we do?
Take a family photo by it the next morning! (More photos in a Facebook album HERE.)

Maybe I'll have more photos from vacation in the next few weeks. For now, I've been thinking about how to tackle this triathlon tomorrow (0.25 mile swim, 14 mile bike, 4.4 mile run). Here's what I've figured out:

SWIM: Go pretty hard. 99% effort. My swimming has been good lately, so I'll use it.

BIKE: Again, go pretty hard. Maybe harder than I've ever biked at a triathlon. Here's my reasoning: my run is going to be awful because I'm just getting back to running after my ankle injury in April. Being I've been biking a lot lately (not great WORKOUTS, but some decent MILEAGE), I might as well try to take advantage of that and go nuts on the bike. I could easily take it too easy and save a lot for the run only to STILL be running a lot slower than usual because of my injury. So I might as well just go hard on the bike. I'm sure I'll make myself back off a BIT, but I hope I can be ballsy and go pretty hard here.

RUN: My times aren't going to be what I want them to be, and I'm prepared for that. I'm just going to suffer through as much as possible. Last year, my official run average was just under 6s. This year, I really hope to be able to keep them under 7:00. Last year, I was doing 11+ mile long runs, and now I'm only up to 4 miles (all easy). My recent bike/run/bike/run/bike/run/bike/run workout showed me I had more speed left than I thought I would have (I did the 1 mile runs about 10-15 secs slower than usual), but I'm afraid what will happen with my endurance over that 4.4 mile run. It could get real ugly by mile 2.

Basically, I'm going into the race blind - I have no idea what to expect. Usually I have a sense of what I hope to bike and run, but tomorrow could really hold ANYTHING. We'll see.

Oh, and I'll be wearing my "tutti frutti" shorts for the race. I first made my public debut in them at the Waseca Triathlon in 2010, and I've worn them each year I've raced there:

2010, 2011, and 2013 at Waseca.

Check back soon for a race report! Check twitter in my sidebar for updates. Off we go! Wish us luck!