Best of the US, on 5.5 weeks of training

Wow...I have been slacking the last few months.  Life has been pretty busy, but I guess that is expected for 2nd year of medical school.  I am in the middle of cardiology right now and had my first test this morning.  The rest of the week will have more focus on resting (which will be hard with school...) since I am racing this weekend in Arizona as the Nebraska representative at Best of the US triathlon.  You may be wondering, "I didn't know you were racing still?"  Well, neither did I.  In fact, I haven't raced since mid July, and spent the following 2 months being fairly lazy (and only touched the pool once).  Jerry MacNeil contacted me in mid September and asked if I would represent NE.  Deciding that I couldn't turn this down, I decided to give it a shot.  I hit the pool the following day, and began doing 3-4 two a days per week.  My training plan was simple; do some hard stuff on the bike 1-2 times per week, and hope that the legs respond.  Essentially, I completely skipped the base training phase and went into 4 weeks of the build phase.  I am not an obsessive volume guy compared to most and planned to hit 9-12 hours of training during this time.  The breakdown was about 5-7ish hours of cycling, 2-2.5 hours of swimming, 1.5-2 hours of running per week.  After this build phase, I gave myself 1.5ish weeks to 'peak' and recover.

 My swimming speed jumped back very fast, and within a few weeks I was actually swimming faster than I did all summer.  Granted, I never felt like I swam well this summer.  Likewise, cycling has been going pretty well, although the off time at the end of summer will definitely hurt me; my concern is the length of the bike (about 29 miles), which will be longer than any race I did this summer.  Lastly, the run... I always bank on my run, but that may not go well.  I always race myself into running shape (literally) each summer as I don't usually have the extra energy/time to throw in a running workout (since I am more focused on improving cycling and swimming).  So the first few races are more of a distant muscle memory on the run.  However, I don't have room for error this weekend, and the last time that I ran fast (even close to race pace) was in mid July.  Ignorance is bliss, as it allows me to pretend that I can run faster right now than I really can. It was my mindset going into Apple Du, and I still ran well even though I ran a 'conservative' race. That being said, I absolutely need to run well if I want to have a good race.  The longer bike will put me even farther behind, and if I don't pass alot of guys on the run, I will not place well.

I can't expect too much given the shortened training period, but based on where my fitness was when I peaked in mid July, I know what I am capable of.  My injury after Annandale tri shortened my peak racing season, and if I can get close to that level, things will go very well.