Sandbagging Arrowhead

This weekend I'm doing the Lake Arrowhead Triathlon again. I am declaring the Lake Arrowhead Triathlon as a NON-SHAVE-WORTHY event. My legs finally look like a 13-year-old's and I'm not about to give up that growth for this.

Arrowhead is a low-key, fun race and it was supposed to be a low-pressure race again this year. But I just stumbled upon something which could make the race a little more stressful.

Last year I finished in 1:25:50, 30th out of 50 in my age group 35-39. Fine. Whatever. I randomly said that this year I'd like to improve by 5 minutes. If I can't do the bike leg alone 5 minutes faster this year, then Jon should disown me. So I looked up last year's results to see where I would place with a time of around 1:20. Funny thing: I jump age groups this year. 1:20 was a top-10 finish in the 40-44 age group. (out of 30, but who cares?) I will never have a Top 10 age-group finish in any race I do so this could be my big chance.

Here's the problem. Since Ironman, I've been a fat lazy slob. I'm 5 pounds heavier and have run a total of maybe 15 miles in the past 6 weeks. I think my swim time will be unchanged; my endurance has improved but I have never ever done any kind of speed training. I don't know how to swim faster. I still think I can do pretty well on the bike. But the run. Oh, the run. I've been doing 11-minute miles since Ironman, and I need to do sub-eights to beat last year's time. Ain't gonna happen.

Had I looked up the results even 2 weeks ago, maybe I could have done some crash training/dieting to get me up to speed. There's nothing I can do at this point except hope that my residual Ironman training can compensate for all of the summer Oreos. But it would be very cool to be able to say "I finished in the Top Ten in my age group" this weekend.