A good week and a beautiful bike ride

With the bike leg clearly my weakest link in a triathlon, I long ago made a committment to train more on the bike and to get more long rides in. Thus far, this year, none of it had happened. Finally this week I followed through. After a regular week, I headed out thos morning from Brooklyn to Piermont and back.. Unfortunately my friend Eric who set out to ride with me was forced to turn around just 16 miles into the ride, at the foot of the George Washington Bridge, with a broken bike chain. But the stretch from the GW to Piermont is pretty much a cycling highway with hundreds of riders heading out each weekend day.

The ride turned out great, the weather fantastic and the views on this ride spectacular, especially while crossing two of the countries most beautiful bridges, the Brooklyn Bridge and the George Washington Bridge. With over 4 hours of cycling covering about 64 miles, this was by far my longest ride all year. Obviously I will need a lot more like this one to get in shape for IM Arizona, but for the early summer Olympic distance races this was a good start.

Another Trip and a Brick

Time flies. During the last two weeks I enjoyed another brief trip , this time home to Vienna for some work related meetings. While in Vienna, I did not have much chance to work out, but I did manage to join a swim workout with my buddies at http://www.kraulquappen.at/ , Vienna's gay swim team. Once back in Brooklyn, last week actually tuned out to be one of the best training weeks thus far this season. I was able to log a total of 6.30hrs, (I know less than the bare minimum in most training plans), but just about where I want to be at this stage. To cap it off, yesterday morning, I did a solid brick workout in Prospect Park of about 24 miles on the bike, followed by about 7.5 miles running. All of it at a steady and even pace , and most importantly, feeling quite good during it. With about three weeks to until my first Olympic distance triathlon, I feel fairly good about where I am at this stage.

Brooklyn Half-Marathon

About a quarter mile into yesterday's Brooklyn Half, just when I was briefly turning my head to glimpse at the Ocean to our left, I found myself slipping and sprawled out on the Coney Island Boardwalk. Even with this mishap, the beginning of the run was just about perfect, maybe too perfect. Thousands of runners and a great venue, the new New York Road Runners starting corral system, and I was out of the gate clearly running too fast a pace over the first couple of miles. Once again I failed to hold back a bit, knowing fully well that I will pay a price later. And so it went, 5 miles into the run I had lost the spring in my step, by mile 8 my calves were tight and by mile 9 my harmstrings where shot. The last mile, a slight uphill towards the finish in Prospect Park was pure misery. I was seemingly unable to lift my legs and so I shuffled up the short hill loosing ever more precious time. At the end, I finished in a for me respectacle 1.40.47. This was still a minute faster than my last Brooyn Half four years ago (and thus four years younger), but it also proved my current limitations holding a brisker pace over a long distance.