June 29th, Friday

Rest & continue to heat the heel.  Heating up in NJ!

June 30th, Saturday

In anticipation of a very warm forcast, I set my alarm for 7 a.m. planning on a early morning bike ride. I’m not typically a very strong morning person, but this seemed necessary and will probably be necessary for the next 3 weeks based on future weather predictions. I have concluded I can do bike rides early in the morning when the roads are still shade covered from the early morning sun.  Later in the day when the crowd clears out I can swim and run in the cool of the evening in the pool.

So I rode the 11 and 1/2 Mile distance that I will be racing on July 21st. There are moments of severe stress along this route because there are some fairly intense Hills. 11 and a half miles took me 73 and a half minutes. That does not seem very fast compared to the results I have seen from last year’s New Jersey triathlon. I am a bit confused as to how people can ride 11 and a half miles in 28 or 32 minutes when it takes me 73 minutes. I know I don’t have a great bike but I don’t think it’s a horrible bike. These people have to be averaging over 20 miles per hour for the entire time. I average about 12 miles an hour. I am not sure if things get quicker during the race or not. And I am told there are no Hills on this race course in Mercer County. But even on flat portions of my route my watch tells me I am going at best 5 minutes per mile. That’s still comes out to 57 minutes, which according to the results of last year’s race would be one of the slowest bike elements in the entire race. I need to do more research on this issue. One dude actually finished the entire Triathlon in 51 minutes. That is crazy!

Stats.

Morning heart rate = 54 beats per minute

Sleep = 6 hours

Morning foot indexes much better = 2

Weight = 153 lb