Words from the rest day

With all of this racing, my Monday morning coffee feels lonely without being accompanied by the writing of a short novel length race report. So, I figured I would give you all a little update on what has happened the last week and what is coming up the next few days!

I was actually able to recovery very quickly from my best performance of the year at Leon's Triathlon (10th overall elite with a time of 2:00:45).  I got right back on the horse Tuesday morning and put in another training block that will hopefully carry me through the next few races and set me up well for a late season push. A lot of my effort was aerobic and endurance based but I still had a few sessions that ramped up my speed to keep the engine fresh. I ended up swimming 9500 meters, biking 185 miles and running 50 miles with my biggest session coming on Saturday morning in the form of a strong double-brick workout where I biked 1 hour at aerobic pace, ran 45 min at aerobic pace, biked 45 min at threshold and ran 30 min at threshold (with Dad on the bike for pacing, encouragement and bottles!)

Tuesday night run on my new favorite trail.
The DPRT is legit! (30 miles of awesome hard packed gravel along the Des Plaines River) 

I biked 2 hours, ran 45 minutes and swam 30 minutes open water yesterday all recovery pace which paid off because I actually feel pretty good (a bit surprising because I slept in and didn't start until it was about 90 degrees outside).  I will take the customary day off today, work a few hours and then pay a visit to my chiropractor to get some treatments.

As for what is next, I am traveling out to the east coast for a set of two races with my friend Alex Libin.  We are driving all the way out there to race the Pat Griskus Triathlon in Middlebury, CT on June 16th and then driving out to Philly to race the Philadelphia Insurance Triathlon on June 24th. I have a ton of family who lives in CT, NJ and NY and I am looking forward to seeing all of them. I do not think we will have to worry about roughing it out there, I am predicting we will be treated like royalty!

That is all for now.  I will try to document as much of our adventure as possible to keep everyone in tuned to the trip. I am looking forward to a great experience and some fast racing.