Spoonful of Sugar

My little girls, like most little girls, love Mary Poppins. As a result, I've seen (or at least heard) that movie more times than I can count. As Mary is found of pointing out, a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down in a most delightful way. I'm going to be taking my medicine in a couple of weeks, so I'd better start getting my sugar ready. Last week's training made clear that I'm slow. It's also made me think about what I've bought myself with all the LSD (long, slow distance). Every one is pretty sure than can go easy for several hours. Jared's little brother Butch's display on Saturday showed me that most people can go easy for several hours, they're just going to suffer while they do it. I have been going easy for several hours each weekend, which I'd hoped would help me at the Vikingman. I realized today that all that this LSD has earned me is the ability to go slow for a long time without suffering or to go slow for a really long time while suffering. Notice how none of that included going fast for any amount of time. So, I'm pretty sure Devin is going to hammer me at the Vikingman. So here's how I'm getting myself ready to take my medicine. I'm going to guess at my Vikingman times, omitting transition times since I have no idea how it's set up. The bad news is that these are my optimistic predictions. Swim - 0:40-0:45. This is a down river swim, with middle of the pack folk swimming in the low to mid thirties. It'll be faster than other swims, but not that much faster. Bike - 3:00-3:15. I'm guessing I'll do just slower than 18 m.p.h with all the corners and the setup of the course. It's flat, but that hasn't seemed to matter on my training rides. Run - 2:30-2:40. 11 min/mile average would put me at 2:23. I've been doing a 10:1 Jeff Galloway protocol and it puts me at about that 11 min pace. Heat and exhaustion will inevitably slow me down. That puts me at between 6:10 and 6:40 before transitions. The 6:10 is a pipe dream. The 6:40 is more realistic. I'd really, really love to be wrong about this, but so far my training hasn't born it out. I once read somewhere that your training pace is a good indication of your race pace, and I've been training at these paces. My only hope is that somehow my aero package gets me 3-4 m.p.h., but I'm not enough of a tri-geek to actually believe that the gear makes me any faster. I just buy it because it looks cool. So where's the medicine? Devin's self proclaimed love of the 'heat check' is going to have him going full-bore to beat me down. He won't be able to hide his glee in doing so, either. That beat down is the medicine. I just hope I can take my medicine like a man.