TAPER WEEK & Last Swim Practice

I just got back from our last swim practice of the season. Four and a half months flew by and all that's left between me and my first triathlon is a few 'taper' days of light workouts before I take off for San Diego.

Last week I wrote about some trepidation about my training, but after this weekends workouts, I'm sure I'll get through it, maybe even with a smile on my face. On Saturday, we did a light swim, practicing the in-water start. This race doesn't start from the shore, rather, we go out a distance and all bob around in the water until our wave (age group) is signaled to start. So after a light 10 minute swim, we did about 18 miles on PCH on our bikes, practicing transitions, and then did a 2 mile run. It was hot as HELL, and we didn't start practice as early as maybe we should have either. 9 a.m. was when we got in the water so by the run around 11, it was boiling and that 2 miles was really really rough. A quick dunk in the water was sooooo nice, and after I left the beach at noon, it already felt like a full day.

Sunday was equally as eventful. I went to bed early, or actually my body forced me into bed early b/c I could barely hold my head up...and was up at 6:30 to go down to Manhattan beach for my first LA Tri Club swim. About 100 people were there, and I was happy to finally find some TNT'ers to buddy up with. Jihan and I ended up swimming a bit over a mile together, slowly but surely, around the manhattan beach pier and back to the beach. It felt great afterwards. It was just such a beautiful day, amazing really, and I can't imagine why I had never done that swim before. Now I had 'accidentally' forgotten my running shoes for a 'fun run' afterwards. But being the incredible athlete and slavedriver that she is, teammate Jiyhan convinced me a 4 mile run barefoot along the beach was the best thing to do. So we did it.
Normally I'm not a huge fan of running around in my bathing suit, or RUNNING in my bathing suit, but i did it. 4 miles with 3 of my teammates to the hermosa beach pier and back, in the boiling hot sun, with a couple quick dunks in the water along the way. Breakfast at Uncle Bill's pancake house afterwards was the perfect chaser.

So after a great weekend of training, and a light run yesterday, I am now in taper. Granted, I have sorta been tapering for 6 weeks :), but this time it's on the schedule. And I'm actually getting excited. On top of that is some bittersweet sadness. I found out Coach Brad won't be at our race and that truly is sad news because he has been so instrumental in all of our progress. tonight my teammates are at the bar, but honestly I couldn't bring myself to go. It just seems too soon and kinda sad to be reminiscing already.

But it really was an incredible season and as I start to slow it down in order to be ready on race day, I will reflect, as Brad suggested in an email today, on how far I have come...from not being able to run a mile to being able to run 6...from not being able to breathe left in swimming to being able to breathe in both directions...from having major saddle sores biking, to building up calluses :)....

more reflection to come...