I was done in by my swim today, if you could call my floundering in the water "swimming". Although I still finished 31st overall in 1:19:21 (out of 281) at the Island Lakes of Novi Sprint Triathlon, I should have finished higher.

Wet suits were banned because the water was too warm. My legs sink; a wet suit helps greatly to add buoyancy to my legs, reducing drag.  Even though my swim felt OK, I was only 137th out of the water - part of that do to the extra drag. But that can't be all of it. Time to take swimming lessons?

In my age category, I was first in T1, on the bike, in T2 and on the run, but was so far behind the fastest swimmer that he beat me overall!

The rest of the legs faired pretty well: second overall in T1, top 20 in the bike, a great T2, and not a bad run place-wise, although it felt (and was) slow:

Wednesday night is the T-Rex Triathlon. Let's see if I can pull my swimming together...

Three sprint triathlons in eight days, starting Sunday:

• Sun, Aug 16 - Island Lake of Novi Sprint Tri
• Wed, Aug 19 - T-Rex Sprint Triathlon
• Sun, Aug 23 Island Lake Sprint Triathlon

Each is around a half mile swim, a 12+ mile bike ride and a 5K run. Short. Fast. Intense. These races are so short, it's an all out effort. In the last sprint triathlon, I reached 95% of my max heart rate during parts of both the bike and the run, and averaged 90% through both legs and the transition between.

To prepare for "Three Tri-Week" (Tri-Tri week?), I made last week my highest volume training week of the summer:

• Volume: 9 hours, 18 minutes
• "Quality" training time (intervals): 45 minutes
• Training load: 834

On the Ryanman week was harder in terms of training load: 877. It probably would have been better to reduce the volume (fewer distance hours) and increase the training load (more intervals or pace training). Too late now.

I've also been focusing on strength training for the past three weeks, trying to get three strength sessions in a week.

This week will be very easy in preparation for the triathlons. Gets lots of rest to recovery from last week. The interval session this morning was relatively easy as interval sessions go. I'll probably get in a swim and a short bike ride, maybe a little strength, but that's it. I want to be fresh for Sunday morning at 8:00am.

I'm not sure how I'll train between races next week - probably some very easy spinning or running to loosen up.

P.S. Friday, August 21 is my birthday. Send presents!