Revenge of the PirateMan

I am feeling like I am hitting peak or near peak fitness for the season, which is good since IMLP is coming up fast. But I actually think I will be super-peaked for Revenge of the PirateMan, which is what I've decided to call my sprint/Oly/HIM/IM festival in August. That's my Buddha above, and he's decked out in various ribbons from various gifts and flower arrangements I've received in the past several years. I've added my new pirate hat from Kim, and I am looking to Pirate Buddha to guide me in the next 10 weeks as I prepare to do something I've never done before.

I can tell I'm peaking because I feel strong swimming long. Not necessarily fast; just strong. I swam 3000 straight last Friday and it didn't feel like a big deal. I hope 4200 doesn't feel like a big deal either this Friday!

I can tell because I can ride hard a lot. In checking through my bike records, I would call yesterday's sprint an "official" FTP test. I rode at 107% of my alleged FTP of 190 (on Bitchie), which is about right for a sprint, but I'm guessing maybe my FTP has gone up maybe 5 points, which is still good, considering I've gotten older (how did that happen???). The day before the sprint I rode 2:45 at 82% of FTP, and the day before that I'm guessing based on my speed that I was at least at 80% of FTP. For me, I think I need a particular combination of volume (outdoors, thank you) and hills (I love riding hills and will ride them fairly hard as evidenced by Horribly Hilly this year). What's cool is that since I'm the lightest I've been in 15 years (15 years ago was when I got divorced and got almost stupid skinny--now I am carrying a lot more muscle), that means my power to weight ratio is going up by leaps and bounds. I would still need to ride a lot more to get super fast, and if I had the time, I'd love doing it, but there is that damn swimming and running to do.

Now about running. I'm not much faster than I've ever been (and I've never been fast), but I feel strong running. Again, the light weight seems to be a factor, but I've also been (carefully, I think) just adding miles for no good reason this year. We'll see how I end up the season in total run mileage, but I've knocked out some great weeks of running in the last 13 weeks (but should remove the 2 I was sick post-Triple T) and not felt any worse for the extra miles.

I feel like this year I am able to push myself harder in the few actual races I've done. I'm saddened that I was sick for Triple T, because I thought I could have won my age division again, or been close.

So now I get to show what kind of fitness I have in an Ironman. It's always dicey, because I could blow my taper, I could be sick, I could be in a bad mental place, it could be rainy and cold (which would surely be my demise) or any number of things. I have reconciled myself to the fact that however it goes, I will have arrived on the starting line in good shape and ready to enjoy the experience.

But I'm really now looking forward to Revenge of the PirateMan, because no matter how I do at IMLP, it will have prepared me well for this new adventure. I don't know anyone else who's done this before (although I'm sure there are a few out there), and I'm not doing it for the accolades or anything--it's just something I wanted to try and see if I could do it. And I'm starting to think that I can do it. I know I can do the first 3 days, easy as pie. And then there's only one more day!

I've got my idol (sorry for the abuse, Buddha!) all set up for the deal. I've got 10 weeks to get ready, which will include a warmup Ironman, and I'm hoping to squeeze in a few other races, because I want the preparation after IMLP to be fun, fun, fun!

Isn't this crazy? I just want to be fit enough to do something I'm not sure I can do, but with each passing day, my body is telling me that I can do it, and I will.