On my own again….the coaching thing didn’t work out as well as planned, though I did get a tremendous amount of help from it.

Mel has the Half Vineman training schedule and I’m going to pick up at the appropriate week on that — it should mesh fairly well with what I was doing. So I’m back to logging on this blog and on my Polar software. I’ll try to post weekly goals and totals.

Dave and I went to a Phase IV lecture last week by their nutritionist and were pretty impressed. We’re toying with the idea of signing up for a package with them in the fall/start of base for 2008.

Can you justify getting coaches, lactate testing etc if you’re a back of packer wanting to get better? If truly, triathlon is not an end in itself but (merely) the method through which you are trying to improve your health and fitness? For that matter, why does it make a difference to me whether I consider myself training for the season with a goal to peak at my ‘A’ race as opposed to simply crosstraining?

I starting doing triathlon to become more fit for SCUBA diving. I’ve now put far more time in training for triathlons than I have diving. In fact, I’ve been diving less BECAUSE I’ve been training for triathlons.

But I am a lot more fit, a lot thinner (I doubt my old diving wetsuits will even fit) and a MUCH better swimmer.

I mean, I now have a Zone 1 running pace. Three years ago that pace would’ve jacked up my heartrate to zone 4/5. This constantly amazes me, though it shouldn’t; I’ve been working out fairly consistently now since spring 2005. So it’s not like it was a quick fix. And it’s not like I don’t still have a long way to go.

I’m 37# lighter than my max and 15-25 away from my goal….and put it this way, I’ll still be an Athena, at least for most races.

Clothing-wise, I have a few holdouts from my previous wardrobe (some sweaters that droop on me) but I’ve had to buy new clothes for the most part. I’ve gone down a size or two in scrubs — I do like them baggy but only to a point! I need to go through the whole process of buying some more jeans, because I can pull off the ones I bought 10# ago without unbuttoning them. (And my friend who just visited from Texas said they were baggy around my butt. What are friends for?!)

And, of course, I’ve even had to replace my tri uniforms.