I'm feeling pretty good about the tri next weekend. Everything appears to be coming together well training wise and so long as I don't destroy myself too much the day before at the Leesburg Bakers Dozen I should put in a decent showing. My hope is to be competitive in my age group for the Lake Moomaw Sprint Tri in Mid/late June so this will be a test of how likely that will be. I of course am hopeful of mustering up some high level performance for the Kinetic next weekend but I'm certainly not holding my breath on that one.

Yesterday morning I drove to hains and did a few laps before heading into work, beating the tourists and crowds of lunch time. On Sunday while waiting for my bro-in-law to purchase his new Felt F85 (SWEET!) I happened across a set of FSA VisionTech clip-on aero bars on sale for half off. Of course I had to get them. I mounted them tentatively on the Cannondale and really tested them out for the first time yesterday morning. I figured I'd be too cramped but as it turns out my position feels amazing! It may not be as aggressive as it could be but it is very comfortable and I was able to produce plenty of power.

Over lunch I took a Mall run with a coworker I happened to bump into on the way out. The legs and body felt really good and I think I could have put in some serious miles and or speed work but we kept it pretty easy and stuck to the 4/4.5 mile mall loop.

Then finally after work I headed out to Falls Church to pick up the rented wetsuit from Bonzai Sports then headed home to my pool to try it out. After initially putting it on backwards and then swimming a lap (God that was weird and uncomfortable) I got it on correctly and got a good swim in. I timed myself for the 17 lap approximate 750 m swim and came in right around 14 minutes, though that included some brief breaks in between on my turns and was a bit long for the actual race distance. My hope is to be able to come in under 13 minutes for the race. I just have to remain focused on efficiency and not get caught up in the high stroke rates that tend to kill me. I also seem to glide so much easier and quicker really with limited leg kick which is good since I want to use my legs as little as possible during the swim anyway.

So, that's where I stand; the second half of next week I'll hopefully scale things way down and try to save some energy for the crazy weekend ahead. The Monday following I'm taking the day off to recover. My goal for now with the triathlon is to be puking as I cross the finish line, or at least as close as possible to that. I've never been able to physically push hard enough to get there so it will be a tough thing to accomplish.