Summit Triathlon Training - Rest to do Your Best

Woke up this morning after a very fun evening near Nevada City.  Ski Patrol Guitar Mike invited me to the annual "Log Jam" at his friend's house.  There were at least 3 bands and 30+ amazing musicians.  We got to play along with our guitars and enjoyed wonderful food and adult libations.  What an excellent way to carbo load and get ready for today's workout.

For those of you who don't know me well, I live at about 7,000 foot elevation on Donner Summit.  A quick 15 minute bike ride takes me down to Donner lake - 3.5 miles away.  The ride is quick because it's a very steep descent on windy old Highway 40.  Other than rainbow bridge, I can now make it all the way down with no brakes - now that's exhilirating, just have to watch out for chipmonks, marmots, and gravel.  Of course, since I live at the top of the hill, every time I head down, I have to head back up - 3.2 miles of solid uphill.  I see other crazy people riding the hill every day!

So, you might be asking ... why the title "Rest to Do Your Best"?   "Riding a half hour straight uphill doesn't sound like rest to me"!!  Well, you're right.  But, lemme 'splain with a brief story ... 3 years ago, I trained all spring and summer to compete in the masters cross country series in the San Francisco area.  I came in 2nd in my age group by 6 seconds for the whole west coast.  I vowed to come back and win the following year ... I trained even harder and aggravated an old Achilles' tendon injury.  So, no vindication, and no racing :(


So, I've decided to just run every other day.  I also love to bike and swim, so why not a triathlon.  I plan on doing the Donner Lake Triathlon July 18th this year :)  Well, I thought that if I was only running every other day or so, I wouldn't get in as good of shape.  This is proving to be wrong.  I'm getting faster.  Hard to tell if I'll get as fast as three years ago, but the Achilles' tendon is feeling fine.  With the biking, I'm training longer with less impact, so that burns more calories, decreases weight and increases running speed!

So, to either prolong your running racing career or your knees, hips and tendons, I highly recommend traithlon training ... I like to say "it confuses the injuries"  :)  Thanks to MJ and her bro Jeff for inspiring me to take on triathlons this summer.