can't drink cerveza anymore

That's right, it has gotten serious. As of last Monday, I have sworn off drinking until after IM Arizona. 11 weeks without alcohol would be a new PR, and I'm looking forward to it. It's not that I don't believe in having an outlet in the form of a few beers once in a while. BUT it's harder to get up to workout, and it causes me a ridiculous amount of GI distress. These things mean poorer-quality training, missed workouts, and the list goes on. Not to mention the dinero that these days I should be spending on healthy calories (fuel). Shannon and I have sworn it off until November 21st post-race. Yippee or something. If you see me sneaking a drink at the Kona send-off event at TriSports retail store next week (open bar, yikes!), give me a hard time, okay? Okay. So, that's all on this topic.

Well, after my week of "recovery", I was ready for a recovery from my recovery, and the training plan served it up! 12 workouts in 6 days. My first 3-a-days (Tuesday and Friday) in a long time. Weekly summary: 16.4 hours, 8700 yards in the pool, 10.1 hours on the bike, 24 miles of running. Long ride of 4:30, long run of 1:30. Obviously a huge jump up across the board, although my swimming and running distances were still not huge. All about the bike this week. 1-1/2 hours of hills/flats, 2 hour no-calorie ride, 2 hours of intervals, and, finally, a group ride up Lemmon on Saturday.

Bonk of the week: A tie between my no-calorie ride and the Lemmon ride. Ouch to both.

Hardest workout of the week: Lemmon.

Funnest workout of the week: Lemmon. I guess that's just how these things work. It was a great group ride from the TriSports.com retail store. We probably had something like 50 people on the ride, and it was quite a mix, from serious triathletes like me, Chrissy Parks, Billy Oliver and Brian Stover (fellow TriSports.com athletes) to several people from the U of A Tricats to a couple of the shop guys riding on fixies. It was a no-drop (read painfully-slow) ride to the base, and then a hammer-fest on the climb. At milepost 0, the group shattered and several of us went off the front. Ended up backing it off a bit so I didn't kill myself, but several of us ended up going to Palisades. Back to TriSports for some much-needed post-ride grub, then off to recover at home. It was a good day.

Besides training, work was work, and had some good family time, topped off with a trip to Apple Annie's Orchard for some apple, pear, and peach picking. Of course, the girls' favorite part was the aside of chasing whatever bugs we came across, including this monster cicada! So cool.














Oh, and then there was the epic grasshopper chase. Rylie is apparently learning about persistence hunting. We're not quite at Tarahumara status yet, but we're working on it.



And with that, it's time to get to bed. No rest day this Monday. Time to start knocking out the workouts. Looks like similar riding this week, with a bit of a pick-up in the swimming and running distance. Let's hope I can keep on this roll!