OBRA TT Champs & Count Down to Hula-man

Less then two weeks to go until the first annual Hula-man half IM. This should be a fun race since it basically covers all of the areas I train on year round. Swim in Hagg Lake, ride to Hillsboro, and run around Intel. Normally this might seem boring since I cover the same ground all the time. But in the race I'll be suffering most of the day so I won't really notice my surroundings. But it will be nice to know which corners I need to brake on and which I can take at full speed. My training seems to be coming along well after Coeur A'delene. I did a 40K Time Trial bike race in Corvallis this last Sunday with no taper leading up to it. It was warm and sunny, but windy. It was an out and back on a flat stretch of smooth road. Tail wind on the way out made for a fast ride (between 27 and 31 mph for most of the first 12 miles). On the way back though...ouch... major head wind. I was lucky to hold 23 to 24 mph. The last 4 miles were tough. My HR was near max and my legs were dead. I managed to take first in my category (4/5) out of 20. Barely escaping Garren who was only a few seconds behind. Average speed was just over 25.5 mph I think, total time was 58:09. This was a good confidence builder going into the half IM. After the race I came home and ran 12 miles at a steady pace (8:00 min pace) with my HR below 150. I felt much stronger Sunday then I did a week ago at Blue Lake.
This week is more tempo pace type workouts (zone 3 HR, about 150 to 155 bpm). Should be about 18 hours total for the week. Should be a good week to fit it all in, not too many commitments. Then towards the end of next week I will start to taper for the race. The bigger plan is to structure my training so that my fitness is peaking for the Soma half IM in AZ on October 28th. So there will be some more big weeks coming up. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE having a coach!!