1st 1 Mile Non-Stop

Today I had the fire to get a mile in without stopping.  It felts awesome.  I did it in 31:15.  I'd like to get it down to 28 minutes by race day.  I then did a 2000, 2000 and 3200 ...... so 2 mile overall.  I think the 3200 was about 13:16.  Everything felt awesome, aside from my foot which I tweaked the night prior.  Next big goal is 1.5 miles non-stop.

First Plunge in Lake Washington this Weekend

Down the wire now w/ four weeks left so I must graduate from the warm pool to freezing cold Lake Washington. It will happen Saturday morning w/ fellow Alcatrazee Chris, who's already been in the lake more times than I can count. Bbbhhrrrrr!!!

I took the video below on Jan 1st of this year at the annual Polar Bear Plunge in Lake Washington and granted it's a bit cooler Jan 1st compared to right now. Marc is in this clip, who is also another Alcatrazee this year.

50 Minutes in the Lake

Whoohooooo . . . . . still can't believe it, but I was able to swim in the lake for 50 minutes this morning and after about 15 minutes of getting used to the cold and fungus amungus floating about, I was actually able to enjoy it. I kept waiting for my body to go in shock w/ the cold, but this is the first time it didn't do it. And to make it even better, as I was getting out of the water I was chatt'n w/ a diver going into the water and I asked him if he knew the temp and he said he checked less than a week ago and it was 49 degrees. That's at leat five degrees cooler than Alcatraz, so hearing that was a huge boost for me. No wonder why I froze my cahones off last week when I did a plunge w/o my wet suit.

Post swim I did a nice 6 mile loop from Madison Beach to Capital Hill and there is a huge hill I was constantly climbing for the first three miles.

So, in a nutshell, great training day and feeling like I truly might be able to do this Alcatraz swim. Whoohooooo!!!

Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon

Just found another youtube clip on the race. A great overview from start to finish, especially with the swim. Check it on out.

Aerial of the Race

The link below give's a graet aerial of the race. It's defaulted to the swim aerial and they sketch a swim route in, so you can get a feel of a route a swimmer might take (all dependent on the current and speed of the swimmer).

Click Here for Aerial Link

Another Great Swim

Training is coming along. Nothing new and exciting to report EXCEPT that I had my best 1,000 meter swim on Tuesday, beating my old time by 1 min, 40 seconds (from the previous week). On Tuesday I did it 14 min, 50 seconds. It just all kind of clicked as far as strength in the pull and I didn't get tired w/ keeping up the momentum so each lap was consistent at 45 seconds. Now I need to focus on distance and start doing the 1.5 non-stop.

Last night I did an hour spin then a 5 mile run. That kicked me a little harder than I excpected.

I supposed I should also start sleeping with the window to get used to the cold. That was a suggestion from Gary Emich (the Alcatraz swim super star) in order for us to prep for the frigid waters. What is a possum jumps through my window in the middle of the night? :)