Off season

The off season is in full swing for me. I'm getting tons of sleep, eating too much, spending time with the fam and counting down the days before my mandatory time off training comes to an end. I'm still getting out on the bike a few times a week but it's back to the road bike, no HR data, and stopping whenever I want to check out the scenery. Here are some pictures from my ride Saturday morning and our foray to the Mexican restaurant later in the day with the grannies after the USC game.

Fall colors in Lexington county

Horses eating breakfast

The family eating Mexican - pic taken by my son

Dad showing off the south paw inverted chip dip

I get the "crazy eye" after a couple of those big beers

Abby chatting it up

"Mr. Photo" himself

I have another ride scheduled for Saturday morning with my friend Tony. I hope this rain moves on about its merry way. Other than soft pedaling I've done a tiny bit of swimming which included my first set of repeats in months. I was shocked to set training PRs on 100 meter sprints!! How could this be? I've only been doing looooooong distance sets for months at 1:34-8 per 100 meters leading up to Nov 1 and now I'm busting out 100s in the 1:20s ... that's like 1:12 per 100 for you yardage folks !? I hope that's here to stay!!!

I finally got a chance to talk (via email) with SCTS bada$$ Jeff Brandenburg recently. He gave me good advice about taking this time off training and the importance of having some downtime to avoid burnout later in the year. Hopefully we'll get together for some training after he gets past the Kiawah marathon (my money is on a sub 3). I'm looking forward to riding with some folks that will push me into anarobic bliss. Wouldn't hurt to have training partners to do the same in the other two sports as well. Last year Bill (who now resides in NC) and I ran together quite a bit and upped each other's game with speedwork at the track and river front trail. There's real benefit in good training partners.

It looks like my new coach has my yearly plan in the works and we'll get started on training plan next week. I haven't yet gotten his take on my stated goals for this year. Will he think I'm delusional? I tend to dream big. This should be interesting ...