swimming, biking, rain...

apologies for the gap in posts... 

I've been very consistent about getting my swim workouts in.  With a week to go in the month of march I have 88400 yards logged.  Looks like I should easily cruise past 100,000 for the month.  I've also been picking up the bike workouts.  I had two nice 3-hour rides with Kent last weekend, then a solid 2-hour ride on Wednesday evening and a local road race today.  Good times.  Monday morning I test my foot on an outdoor run for the first time in a month and a half.  Four underwater-treadmill runs over the last two weeks have gone well.  I guess I'm cautiously optimistic...

I think I'll swim the 500 at the mid-April masters swim meet in Federal Way.  It will be cool to race in the pool again and useful to see where I'm at relative to the USAT Developmental Team cut times.  The "B" cut is 5:18 and the "A" cut is 5:01.  I expect to be somewhere in between.

After the bike race today I had some fun at the pool.  I was just going to do some long-stroke/technique work but then I found my fins in the car.  Mwah hah ha...  I threw in 5x200 K and 5x200 S, both sets descending on a 2:40 send-off.  I was amazed at how quickly I could cruise through the water with the flippers.  Some of it was just perception, as my head was up out of the water... but I had this killer wake trailing behind me.  For those who love keeping score at home, my kick 200s went from 2:29 down to 2:16 and my swims went from 2:16 down to 1:55.  Tucking into a streamline and kicking the length of the pool before coming up for a breath and flip-turn... a very cool feeling...

I am signed up for the first few Tri-California races but I'm holding off on Honolulu Cup plans until I see how my foot feels as I start re-building the run.  I got a letter from the Philadelphia Triathlon the other day and I'm thinking I'll sign up.  I've heard great things about the race and it will be a good excuse to see my grandparents (and maybe my brothers, too - DC ain't far from there).

3.5 weeks until I head to Austin for a 5-day minicamp with Markie V, Freer, Don and whoever else wants to join us.  It's gonna be fantastic...

I will leave you, as always, with a picture of fruit.  This is from last Saturday - I just hadn't gotten aorund to posting it yet.  I've managed to start a "Produce Club" at my office.  I got this comercial top-load display fridge from my uncle and we have an Honor System about keeping it stocked - if you eat fruit, but fruit from time to time.  We'll see how it goes, but it's a good group of folks so I doubt we'll have understocking issues.  Anyways, the pin-up picture, appropriate for your locker or closet door or whatnot: