Summer Races, Explained

I guess there isn't a whole lot to explain, my A races are the Muskoka 5150 in three weeks, followed by the Toronto Triathlon Festival three(?) weeks after that. They're coming up!

Why these races? Well... I don't have the ability to travel around and race tonnes every summer, for better or for worse. I decided I didn't want to piddle around with low attendance races. I worked really hard this year and want to see what I'm really made of! So I picked two Ontario races that I thought would be the most competitive. Also, they're AG World Qualifiers. Don't get me wrong, this fact isn't the biggest thing... But I mean come on! That's really cool! And by virtue of World's being in Edmonton next year, this is as good a year to try and qualify as any - I may even be able to go. Never the less, they're both Olympic distance because I also figured, I might as well "do it right". Not to belittle the sprint distance, I just think the Olympic distance will be the most competitive.

I'm running a 10k tomorrow as a sort of final run-prep thing. After this point I'll pretty much be finished with single sport stuff. Bricks will abound. That's what really matters.

This really only brings me to August. I am debating a bike bike block, I'm debating a big run block. I want to run the Halloween 10k again this year, so it might make sense to move into a solid run season, reduce the other sports a little, you know. But depending on my race performances, it may become evident that cycling has become a limiter... It's well established by now that I will be doing a lot of pool work over the winter, but I will have some good weather to use up. Maybe I'll continue with some solid bike work, but move into a base-building run phase, reduce the speed work and just try and hit a new volume-high. Actually, yes. I like that. I think I'll do just that. Thanks guys.

Uhhm, so as far as race specific work goes, I will have two weeks starting Monday to get in some last minute quality, then I will take the week of the race easy to recover. I'll take a day or two (max) off after the race and use the 7 days directly after as a sort of crash week. Then I have two taper weeks and it's back to race week! A little break from training, perhaps a week, and I'm back to training. I might do a local race in August (St Joseph Island Triathlon) because it's the best. I might do a half marathon in September to say I did it. I dunno. Stay tuned I guess.

Adam "Race season!" Fortais