On the Clock: Hawaii 70.3 Honu

My on again off again Ironman goal is taking shape. This year I am up for 2 more half irons, a marathon, and anything else that looks fun will be stepping stones to IM. This particular half is going to be special. My good friend and his son moved back home. He really wanted us to go out and visit. He and his family really wanted me to race there. This race will be a fun visit/vacation with my wife. I hope to find some fun adventures and get a little training in. It is also special because this race uses some of the bike course of the Ironman world championship.

I signed up for this race kind of in a split second. I did not look deep into the details. When I finally did, I was surprised. I was surprised by the swim difficulty, the temperature on the run, the beauty of the run, the expense of getting my bike there, surprised by the age group finishing times (I basically signed up for last place in my age group-more on that in a minute), and surprised that I made a quick decision on signing up for an Ironman event. 1500 athletes out on the swim at the same time with a challenging ocean swim. I am very excited and yet kinda scared.

Scared because I will be quite slow compared to my age group. I am not beating myself or anything. I am gonna have an awesome race. Here is the issue: I have raced 2 half iron distance, both over 8 hours. Yes it is a very difficult course and much harder then this race BUT last year no one at Honu finished over 7 hours. That means a PR of OVER an hour is in order. That means OVER 1 hour and 8 plus minutes. There is no clydesdale division only fast dudes. It will be an amazing experience. I am looking forward to it. Here is my week:

Monday-Rest

Tuesday-Easy run. 3 miles. Started out going to be 4 miles. The old calf came back. It was bad. I did some rehab the rest of the day.

Wednesday-Swim. 750 m. Just get in, do some work.

Thursday-Pushed a run to sleep and then nothing in the afternoon because sully got fixed.

Friday-Training run. I feel like these runs I should be doing some speed work. However, I still and trying not to piss off this calf. So I ran 5 miles. No pain for 2-3 miles but only "tight" or "crampy" feeling. Not bad enough to warrant making a phone call to come get me but enough that made me not want to push it. I got my 5 in and I got some treatment right away. No lasting symptoms so hopefully I am ok.

Saturday-Long bike. 40 miles. Well 40 miles turned into 44. Arithmetic error. It was an awesome ride. My house out to Calleville bay and then to Lake Las Vegas. 44 miles in 2:47:53, avg 17 mph. I did 44 miles 13 min faster then I did 40 miles this time last year. I felt good.

Sunday (today)-Long run. 8 miles. I ran the old Rage course. 4 miles up and 4 miles down. I ran a 4 miles up in 44:04 and down 37:38. I felt very strong. and 2 out of the 4 miles down were under 9 min. I haven't gone that fast in a while. Best part: No calf pain. I felt very strong. Quote:

"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself."

-William Faulkner

I am just trying to be better today than I was yesterday.