It’s Wednesday of Race Week for me, and I’m getting excited. Granted, my legs still feel a little dead, this being the middle of my rest week and all, but racing is coming, and I’ve already recovered enough from the last few weeks’ training that I felt like I had a little pop on the first (and longest) of the little climbs that lead into office on this morning’s commute. I’ll be skipping my commute ride the next two days to rest my legs a little more—though I’ll probably swim a little tomorrow and again Saturday—and then comes Sunday, and IT’S ON!
It’s gonna be brutal out there on Sunday. Perhaps not as brutal as tomorrow’s stage, but I mean, we aren’t a bunch of pro riders out there. We’re fathers and mothers, weekend warriors and engineers… people with a lot of other things on our minds besides just going fast. Against that, the Ocean Beach 19.7 is a longish course for a Sprint triathlon set amidst 90-degree heat with neither shade nor cloud cover, and since the beach is just out past the tip of Long Island, we can expect at least some surf for the swim. Last year, the heat and the sheer difficulty of the course—it only looks flat—caught me by surprise. This year, I know what to expect, and I’ve spent MUCH more time in the saddle and running in the sun. With any luck, we’ll have a little wind, too, giving the water some chop and the race a little front-loaded pain. I mean, I don’t love swimming in choppy, surf-filled water, but I know my strengths, and if we can soften up some of those ultra-skinny runner-dudes while we’re in the water and then make them ride some into a stiff head-wind, that’ll help me quite a bit.
Eh. Looking at Weather.Com, it looks like Ocean Beach ought to be pretty mild by Sunday. Upper 70s with wind at around 10 mph. Not even worth mentioning; heat wave over. Hell, according to Weather.Com, this week’s heat wave won’t even force Ocean Beach over 90-degrees. Meanwhile, NYC is predicted to be in the low upper 90’s to lower 100’s!
I don’t know if I buy it. Ocean Beach Park is about 65-miles from my house, mostly east, and Stratford is expected to go over 90-degrees with ease tomorrow and Friday. And last year it was hot. Moreover, I definitely do remember that they hadn’t predicted any kind of special heat wave or anything in the days leading up the race. It was just a typical summer weekend. But the median time on the run-leg of the race was still over 9:00/mile on a flat course in my age group. That’s god-awful. I don’t care what anybody says: people got pounded by the sun last year.
Bottom line: it was hot last year, and I believe it’ll be hot again this year.
2 comments:
Can't wait to hear how you do on the race. Hope you model the Speedo at least BEFORE you put on the tri-suit (c'mon - just a peek??). I think you're spot on for predicting the same weather so you'll be over-prepared for the heat. Well done for saying that you hope other competitors get beat up by the choppy waters and then succumb to the heat in the ride and run, we're all Team Dan over here!
Ha! Thanks.
I think the biggest thing I've learned this week is that I needed a full week's rest--and maybe a bit more. I feel better now, but it's taken all week to get some pop back into my legs, and I'm still not sure I'm all the way there. Which is fine, but it does go to show how hard I've been training all season.
Post a Comment