Boy. Talk about resting on your laurels! So after Ironman Coeur D'Alene I was all full of myself; I was all, you know that thing, the the gesture where you lick your finger and lay it somewhere on your body and go, tsssssssssss--yeah, i was all that
and I wasn't doing any speed work,
and then I showed up at a local sprint. Unbeknownst to me, my closest rival, fellow NM Outlaw "Warpath" Karen, had been doing some serious speedwork since the LAST time I beat her (twice, but who's counting) and of course, you know what happened next:
yes. Of course, she kicked my ass. SOUNDLY.
and that's even considering that SHE doesn't even have any place to SWIM where she lives, nor does she have any paved roads. She beat the crap out of me.
Lucky for me that Karen is also one of the most awesome people I know. Karen's been doing triathlon for at least 20 years, and for 19 of them has been an Athena. When I first met her, she sat me down and the speech she gave me went essentially like this: bodyglide, bodyglide, bodyglide, bodyglide. Best advice I ever got, hands down.
So, this past Saturday, she had no reservations about telling me what speedwork I should be doing. I sat next to her for nearly an hour after the race and soaked it all in, like a big giant Athena sponge. I had already made a goal of doing speedwork after Ironman but hadn't really followed through on it yet, but after Saturday, I was humbled, after placing fifth Athena, and I made a new training plan for the rest of August in which I do some speedwork in each of the three at least once a week.
Today I started the swim speed work, which I got off Beginner Triathlete, and then cycled uphill onto the mesa and back home. I used my commuter, which has SPDs, and I'd like to point out that I don't ever, ever, ever have to look down to clip into my SPDs. Are you sick of hearing about my pedal angst yet?
Oh, and I can do SIX REAL PUSHUPS now. SIX! I'm pretty sure I've never done that many at one time in my LIFE. I'm thinking, at this rate, I will make my 2008 resolution of doing ten pushups in a row, and then some.
...
