My "off-season" - 4 random races over 5 short weeks

I felt exhausted after my effort at the Korea Half-Ironman.  Korea was my end-of-season “A” race.  According to most any authority on endurance training, this past month should really have been my “off-season”-- a time when I primarily rest along with some strength work and perhaps spend some time on my various minor technique weaknesses (my swim kick, my bike cornering, quickly removing my wetsuit…) 

But no, no, no – I have an odd assortment of events on my calendar: FOUR completely different competitive endeavors over the five weekends following October 4^th:

1.     Shimoda Triathlon 4 / October 11 – I can’t miss the social event of the season – the 4^th informal Shimoda Triathlon.  I enjoy my strongest swim in 2 years in the stormy Shimoda cove, but the fact that it pours down rain during the bike effectively ends my competitive effort halfway through the bike.  I just try not to crash on the scary steep downhill sections amidst the total deluge. 

2.     Inage Aquathlon / October 17 – I have long wanted to do an Aquathlon – a two-stage run/swim race - and I could not pass up the opportunity to join a half-dozen teammates for this 1.5k swim and 10k run.  I really was curious to experience running immediately after the swim and address the question of how strong of run I could do coming off the swim, versus coming off the bike.  The answer: not very strong at all.  I have always been dazed at start of bike in triathlon.  On the bike I could coast.  On the run at Inage I was just suffering – struggling to do 4-minute pace (ouch).  Still I mange to win my age group in time of 1:14:14.

3.     Pacific Northwest Cross Country Championship / November 1 – Hey, why not jump in the local cross country championship in my continuing pursuit of varied events?   Of course I was very much out of my element.. All (and I mean all) the other guys on the Club Northwest team seem totally (and I mean totally) focused on cross country – “I have been doing dedicated cross country workouts since mid-summer” one of the guys tells me – “these are far and away our most important races of the year”.  I have done zero dedicated cross country workouts this year (along with this one last year).   None of the athletes I know in California, Tokyo, Singapore, etc. ever talk about cross country (bar a few hard-core British runners).  I am asked if I will wear spikes in the race. Spikes?  I haven’t worn spike in decades. I haven’t even remotely considered wearing spikes in decades.

So I guess it was understandable that I floundered on the steep, slippery half of the course, but I would like to do better in this type of event.  What was particularly disconcerting to me was that even when I got to the hard-packed trail portion of the course I was still way off my recent race pace.  My pace for the 6k course?  3:59 per kilometer (again - ouch)  28th place out of 64 guys.  

4.     Barbeque 10k / November 8 – I am there for the barbeque (and opportunity for a pure running event).   

I run 37:20. 

 Compare to last year’s 36:59 when my training had been more concentrated on running.  Felt surprisingly good at the start of the race, but my energy fades over the 10k.  (Only 10k - how can I fade?!  Apparently the lower running mileage 30k-40k per week this year versus 50k-70k last year?  or the lack of race-specific training?)