Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Getting Race Ready

Taper.  You’re doing it wrong.

duct_tape_baby_mianro

This weekend’s event is a B race for me, meaning I won’t be peaked or fully tapered for it.  My main goal is just to get some race experience in – living in California it feels incredibly strange to be in May and not have done a tri yet.  But I am having a lighter workout week as we approach the race and am enjoying the sparky feeling developing in my legs!

I had a little brick on tap for today – great chance to feel out the new bike fit with some very short race-pace intervals.  And clearly California is trying to prepare me for the sun and heat in Arizona by finally giving us some proper May weather! (sorry photo is fuzzy)

IMG_1273

And then it was time for transition practice!!!  I was very excited when I saw a note to practice transitions on my schedule, as it’s something we rarely work on that can really save us time.  Given that I’d recently read this blog post, I had a lot of things I’ve been wanting to try.

First of course I needed to really test out my new helmet and work out any issues of putting it on in a hurry.

IMG_1274

Then it was something I’ve never done before – mounting the bike with shoes already clipped in.  I am not brave enough for the flying mount (beautifully demonstrated in that linked post above) at this point and I just about crashed into Jeff’s car the first 2 times I tried getting my feet in the shoes but eventually I got the hang of it.

IMG_1280

The best part was discovering I’m not so bad at the flying dismount!  Which I did over and over again until Jeff got a good picture of it.

IMG_1283

So with just a few light easy workouts to go (and Coach’s instructions to rest the legs a bit more based on how they felt today), I’m feeling pretty confident I can go out there and execute my plan for Saturday – get some race experience under my belt for the year and try some new things out!

Now who wants to pack all this gear up for me?

12 comments:

sallyaston said...

I'm racing at Rio Salado this weekend too. Looking forward to it as I havent done a Tempe race in a while. I have my fingers crossed that it is wetsuit legal though :-)

Aimee said...

Good luck in your race this weekend!! You're going to do great!! :)

Meredith said...

Good Luck! Wish I could be there to cheer you on!

Jennifer said...

Good luck this weekend! Your looking pretty pro on that bike!

ADC said...

Good luck this weekend. I am sure you will rock it.

Christi said...

Have a great race weekend! I am sure you will do awesome!

Wes said...

I found a helmet to fit MY BIG HEAD! It's a Bell, but I'll take it! So much more comfortable than my old helmet.

I thought the flying dismoutn was when you went over the handlebars :-D

Looking forward to your race!!

Meera said...

Omg - snorted my tea at that baby picture! The helmet looks super speedy and partly alien headgear. I think you need to take it to fun races with tubes sprouting from it :)

Unknown said...

That first picture is hysterical! :)

You'll do great this weekend - have fun!

Sherry said...

Exciting times! You look great with your new bike (and new car)! Good luck this weekend, Molly! :-)

Unknown said...

oh good luck this weekend. It will be a nice ease into the season. Wish I could be there too!

jennabul said...

Looking forward to your race report...enjoy Arizona!