"Catching Up"

Hello!!  Ok I’m back after a crazy month of training and racing…  I do apologize, I will try and update this a little more often.  The combination of my marathon training and triathlon training has put me over 25-30 hours a week and I just have not had time to update my blog…

… so obviously June was a very busy month for me!   I ended up skipping my taper and trained straight through my marathon, this way I can properly taper for the Ironman on July 20^th.  I had to cut back on my running a bit starting on June 22^nd but it’s only for 1 month while I dramatically increase my biking and keep up with my swim practices.   I have really enjoyed the swimming and it’s going great, last night I did 8 laps at Barrington Lakes which comes out to just about 2.5 miles.   I feel the 70.3 Ironman will be a fairly “manageable” task and look forward to training for the full next year.    The biking is still my weak point and I have conceded to be happy with my slower times and I’ll build on that over the winter and hopefully come out being a little more competitive next year. 

I’ll recap my June races below, it’s hard to believe the year is ½ way over already!!

Rhubarb 5K – June 7^th – Time 18:50

This wasn’t a great time for me but I won the race by nearly 2 minutes so I didn’t have much pressure to push the pace. I had come off a hard training week and planned to run this for place rather than a PR so it worked out well.  I averaged just under 6 minute miles, although to be fair I did a 5:40 first mile and hit the brakes shortly after as I was pretty far ahead of the field.   The event was a new location this year and I enjoyed both the course and the Rhubarb Festival that followed.   I also won a $50 gift card, a Road ID gift certificate and a $10 coupon to Caseys… pretty cool!

Grandview Gallop – June 14^th – Time 23:08

I had not planned on racing the Gallop this year as it was only a week before the marathon but I changed my mind last minute and very glad I did. I ended up coming in 8^th overall (1^st in my division) with a time of 23:08 which put my splits about 5:45.  The pace was great and so was the race, I was very happy with my time considering I had not tapered at all and really was pushing hill work all week prior to the event.  On top of racing I also helped setup the finish line in the morning, I course marshaled the 1 mile course and I helped rep the DRC Booth at the Expo.. it was one busy fun morning!

Grandma’s Marathon – June 21^st – Time – 3:28:36

Marathon went off perfectly… I had an amazing time!  Granted I was not racing this one so that took a lot of pressure off, still it went even better than I could have expected!

The temps in Duluth were very cool, 45 at the race start at just over 50 degrees at the finish.  Bill, Shannon and I ran as a group and really had a fun time… we met up with a few from Dubuque and had many cheering for us “Iowa Guys” from the sidelines.    The race was a point to point so they bussed us out 26 miles and we ran into town, this made the first 18-19 mild pretty sparse with the crowd; then once we hit the town the streets were just packed with people for the final 6 or 7 miles.    The finish was in the Harbor by the lift bridge, it was really cool to finish right by the water, some even jumped into the lake to get an “ice bath” (water was in the 30’s).