Another Taper Week

Doing not one, but TWO, triathlons this weekend at the PlayTri Festival in Las Colinas. Doing the Sprint-distance triathlon (500M swim, 10mi bike, 5K run) on Saturday and the International-distance race (1,500M swim, 27mi bike, 10K run) on Sunday. Sometime late last year when I signed up, it seems like a good idea. That or I was enticed by the huge discount for the “package deal”, which made the Sprint only $25 (which is more than half-off a normal sprint tri race fee). :-P

Monday: Did some swimming today - 3,000 yards in 1:04:03. Again, I concentrated on my form, but didn't want to take all the breaks. I'm happy that my times were actually just as consistent last Friday's swim even without the breaks. Times for the 500 yd splits:

• 1st 500 yds: 10:32
• 2nd 500 yds: 10:34
• 3rd 500 yds: 10:37.5
• break: 0:37.5
• 4th 500 yds: 10:27.5
• 5th 500 yds: 10:37
• 6th 500 yds: 10:38

Tuesday: Work, work, work. Did an evening workout - one hour on our home elliptical trainer.

Wednesday: One hour spin class and then 1,000 yard swim - with some pretty good times

• 1st 500 yds: 8:57
• 2nd 500 yds: 9:10

The 8:57 split is a personal best! (The 9:10 time is not too shabby either.) And 18:07 for the 1,000 yard distance is also a personal best. A good performance, especially after 55 minutes on the spin bike.

If I have time, I'll try to do some running tomorrow morning. Tomorrow & Friday, my family and I are going to the Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine. So I'll get a couple Off Days (not counting time in the waterpark :-) before the back-to-back tris.

Derek was joking that with all of events (Lone Star Tri two weeks ago, PlayTri this weekend, Old College Tri in two weeks, and the MS-150 bike ride May 3-4) *every* week will be a taper or recovery week. He's right to some extent, but if we exercise good post-race recovery (nutrition, stretching, massage) we can still work out with just a few days rest after each event and just taper a few days before the next one.