Gearing Up

I had a pretty good run last night and a good (short) ride on Sunday. I was forced to take a few days off due to soreness above my right knee. It felt like a sore muscle at first, then more like a contusion when I tried massaging it. I'm not entirely sure of the cause, but I play softball on Wednesdays which puts a different set of strains on my body than endurance training does. I'm thinking that I tweaked something while sprinting, because I don't recall being hit there by anything or anyone.

I just added another race to my calendar, the Rodney T Miller Lakeside Triathlon in Decatur. I'm treating it as a warm-up race for my two "A" races this year: Evergreen and IronAbe. These are both qualifying races for Age Group Nationals. I set my goal early in the year to qualify to go to Portland. After looking back over my previous results in these races and hoping to train harder and get faster, I have hope of hitting this goal. The qualifying standard is a top 33% A/G finish in a qualifying race, or a top 10% A/G finish in any USAT sanctioned event. In my previous races at Evergreen and IronAbe, I was within striking distance of top 33% finishes.