Tennessee Training

Over the past few months, pro triathlete Craig Evans has made the occasional weekend training trip down to Birmingham from his home state of Tennessee. I take the opportunity to push myself in keeping up with him whenever I get the chance. This past weekend, I headed up to his neck of the woods in Tennessee to do some training. After getting in Friday evening, we took the time to catch up and plan out the weekend over dinner. We rose Saturday morning and headed up to Lock 4 Park in Gallatin TN. This is the venue of the Xterra Lock 4 race that takes place every July. We warmed up one lap and then did two strong laps around the 7 mile mountain bike course. Although this course lacks any long sustained climbs, the constant acceleration and braking required to quickly navigate the sharp corners and switchbacks make this course deceptively difficult. Any extra time on a course like this always helps out on race day. I rounded out the morning with a 3 mile run on the Xterra run course. After lunch, we headed to the pool for a 3000 meter long course workout. As my first ever post bike/run swim, I understand why swimming is the first leg of a triathlon. My legs were fatigued to the point where I needed a pull buoy just to keep my form. After a four hour training day, I enjoyed the chance to sleep like a new born baby as soon as my head hit the pillow Saturday night. We finished up the weekend with a two hour road bike ride Sunday morning. This was the first ride on my new Trek Madone 4.7. I’ll post more about the bike after a few more rides, but it performed beautifully on the Tennessee countryside roads. Unfortunately, not even the bike could help tame the strong winds. Our initial plans for a 50 mile ride were cut about 10 miles short after giving in to Mother Nature. With 3 races planned for June, this will serve as one of my final weeks to make big gains before my racing season kicks off!