Tapering to 14 hours a week... how do I feel about where I am at?

Long time no blog entry… The reason, I think, is that there isn’t much new in my training. I have entered the taper phase of Ironman training… sort of.

This week’s plan is:
MON – Ride 90 at race pace
TUE – Run 6 x 2 km at 4:40/km with a 4 minute set break at 5:30
WED – Swim 90 open water
THU – Ride 90, run 60
FRI – Strength training 60, swim 45, Ride 4x 10 minutes HARD with a 2 min set break
SAT – DAY OF REST
SUN – Frank Dunn Triathlon. Swim 1500, Ride 63 km, Run 13 km.

Nice. We’ve tapered down to 14 or 15 hours.

I am noticing more pop in my legs, though. The LONG runs and rides on Sunday are in the past and I have more energy for interval runs. Tuesday’s interval run was the best I have had in a long time.

I am ready to get it on. Let’s go already. The training is getting tedious. I’m ready to go. Let’s get to race day.

Here is how I feel about where I am at.

Swimming – Yesterday I swam 80 minute in Pike Lake (thanks Reagan, I would not have gone as long on my own). All good. I am not fast but I have gotten fast enough and confident enough that I am actually looking forward to the Ironman swim. I used to be scared of it. Not anymore. I think it will be fun and even relaxing to start the day.

I have gotten sufficiently relaxed that while swimming that I now have time to think.

Yesterday I developed a Pike Lake speed measurement method. From the tip of my toes to the tip of my fingers held above my head is 2.34 meters. This means that when I am swimming along in Pike Lake and my fingertip touches a weed I can time it until my toes touch it and now I have a distance and time and I can convert to speed. I was having trouble doing the math while swimming so I have worked it out this table:

Weed passage time    Speed
2.8 sec            2:00/100 meters
3.0 sec            2:10/100 meters
3.3 sec            2:20/100 meters
3.5 sec            2:30/100 meters

This has absolutely no practical application because it’s impossible to time half second in one’s head while swimming so it was pretty much a waste of time but I didn’t have a lot else to do… I was swimming in the middle of Pike Lake. The other thing I was thinking about is whether or not a skinny dipping make would snag himself in the weeds. It was kind of a boring swim.

Cycling – I am happy with my biking. Last week at my cottage in the Moose Mountains I rode up “The Hill of Death!” That’s what I called it last year. This year it was no big deal. Like swimming, I am not fast but I have gotten a lot more efficient. It will be a long ride but I am confident that I can keep it at a nice, easy speed and have something left in my legs after that 180 km. My standards routes are taking a lot less time than they used to.

Running – I used to be scared of the swim. Now I am scared of the second half of the marathon. This is healthy. Most everything one reads talks about the second half of the marathon as the place heart of the race – everything to that point is warm up. I am spending my time imagining soldiering on through the pain of the second half of the marathon at a slow and steady pace.
My goal is 12:56. It feels like it should be no problem as 1:40 swim, 6:40 ride, and 4:40 run all seem very feasible times. I expect to be at least this fast.