TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2009

Mini rant: I'm kinda tired of reading articles by those who are "amazed" about older athletes who are competing mano a mano with the younger folks. (Watson and Armstrong being cases in point.) As an old(er) athlete (or whatever you call 61), it seems to me that we are all on continuums of age, height, weight, strength, resting HR, HR reserve, experience, training, determination, diet, etc., etc., etc. In short, as the late Dr. George Sheehan was fond of saying, we are each an experiment of one. Excellent older athletes may be out on the tail of age versus performance, but to really understand what's happening the other factors need to be brought into the equation.

Which leads to (if your thinking zooms around like mine): I wonder how I'll do at the Steelhead Half Iron race in two weeks?

Past results*:

Age Overall Male AG Total Swim T1 Bike T2 Run

Whirlpool Steelhead 2008 60 1023/3687 825/1894 6 5:13:32 16:24 2:36 2:41:06 3:35 2:09:53

Whirlpool Steelhead 2007 59 1453/3561 1082/1780 25 6:32:25 50:05 6:57 2:52:34 7:08 2:35:41

Whirlpool Steelhead 2006 58 577/2856 472/1349 4 5:31:48 42:39 6:56 2:39:32 2:31 2:00:10

Whirlpool Steelhead 2005 57 173/1005 157/502 1 5:26:45 42:42 6:31 2:38:49 2:56 1:55:47

Whirlpool Steelhead 2004 56 125/627 114/313 3 5:29:00 40:58 4:26 2:41:13 2:33 1:59:50

* Notes: 2008 swim cancelled - just ~2 mile run to start. 2007 I had an achilles injury (even worse than this year - every event was impeded, but running any pace but S-L-O-W was a special challenge.

My assessment:

I am swimming as well if not better than ever (with more masters time and a lot of distance mitigating my lessened range of motion from my 2005 (after Steethead) crash.

I am no slower (or faster) getting out of my too tight wetsuit.

My very long rides are down this year, but my riding frequency is up and mileage is as good as ever. I am comfortable pushing on the bike (but might fade in the later miles).

If I can avoid the porta potty, no reason I can't get back to a 2.xx T2 (still slow, I know...)

I think I can settle into 8:45 miles even with my paultry run training due to the hurting achilles - ran 8 at this pace a few weeks ago and six this past weekend at 8:30 pace. The question will be, how long can I sustain this pace on my lack of run distance training since Boston? I think I will probably fade..

My best guess unless I hit unforeseen obstacles: 42:00 + 6:00 + 2:45:00 + 2:40 + 2:05:00 = 5:40:00.

Thoughts? What am I missing?