This week's planned training

Monday - 8/11/08:
Rest day

Tuesday - 8/12/08:
AM - Run = 40 min w/ strides a
PM - Bike = 1 hr MTB ride a

Wednesday - 8/13/08:
AM - Swim = 1 hr Master's swim a
PM - Bike = 1 hr trainer workout w/ Spinervals + Core workout a

Thursday - 8/14/08:
AM - Run = 1 hr 20 min hilly run a
PM - Swim = 1 hr Master's swim a

Friday - 8/15/08:
AM - Rest
PM - Swim = 1 hr Master's swim a

Saturday - 8/16/08:
AM - Bike = 3 hr 30 min MTB ride (riding from house up Reddington & doing the 4417 loop) a
PM - Rest

Sunday - 8/17/08:
AM - Bike = 2 hr road ride (Saguaro East), Swim = 1.5 hr TTG swim a
PM - Rest

Weekly totals:
Swim = 4.5 hrs
Bike = 8 hrs
Run = 2 hrs
Total = 14.5 hrs

Whoa! Did I click on the wrong link and suddenly end up back on the IM training blog? Yeah, it almost looks that way. Believe it or not, this is an "intermediate" Olympic plan from Beginner Triathlete that I'm following to get to Tahoe. I'm just switching out some of the road rides for mountain bike rides. But 14.5 hrs is what I used to pull down on a regular basis in IM training. Oh well...I did it before and I can do it again. That was pretty much the only thing good that came out of training for IMAZ this year, which was to learn the discipline to follow the training plan when I need to. Which means when I'm not following a plan I'm pretty much just screwing around with swim, bike, run. Thankfully, this plan is only 10 weeks long (and I started a bit late due to Snow Valley, so it's actually 9 weeks for me), which is half the IM training plan. I remember I was feeling pretty good about 10 weeks into hard training, so hopefully the same will repeat itself in training for Tahoe. I'm not going to win anything at Tahoe...just hoping to make all the cutoffs and survive the course. Even with all this I'll most likely finish at the bottom of my age group in that crowd. Yep, I gotta work this hard to be mediocre. ;)

Saturday's ride serves 2 purposes. 1) Long time in the saddle and lots of climbing on the MTB, and 2) Check out some of the MTB portion of the Rock Y Road 50/50 course. That race is on 10/18, and I'm actually considering it. If you haven't noticed, I'm not right in the head, which is why a race like this makes perfect sense. The Cliff Note's version (for those that don't click on links) is that it's a 50 mile mountain bike ride followed immediately by 50 miles of road riding, and McDonald park is the transition area. But wait! There's a catch. These aren't just any 50 mile rides. The mountain bike portion has a ton of climbing and goes down La Milagrosa, one of the most technical and difficult trails in Tucson. I've done that trail from the Molino side as a shuttle, so at least I know what that part looks like. Then the road portion goes up Mt. Lemmon. That's right...climb from the bottom up to Palisades and come back down.

So yes, it's a crazy hard race. But I figure there's no 2.4 mile swim to disorient me before the ride, and no marathon run afterwards. Score! Who knows...Chad may figure out a way to add those in the future. And the bonus is, this race is FREE. So if I attempt it and DNF, I won't be out any coin.

Today's PSA: If you do an Ironman, you start to look for more insane things to do afterwards. Ironman is evil that way.