Is the Garmin Varia RearVue worth the $150 price increase over the basic Varia?
Nah.
Got my new wetsuit after all, a Roka Maverick Comp.3, their entry-level one, one size up from the one I have. It’s definitely more comfortable than the one I had; I think maybe it was the wrong size for me all along. Took it out for a very short spin, swam less than five minutes before a thunderstorm started rolling in and I got the hell out of there…
52ºF air and 59ºF water, though, pretty close to conditions in San Francisco Bay, so despite the short swim, I’m less worried about the cold now. That said, I built a little dashboard with publicly-available NOAA data to keep an eye on the water temps leading up to race day:
As for the rest of May:
| Sport | Activities | Time | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Swim | 15 | 9:26:12 | 19.8 km |
| Bike | 20 | 33:58:33 | 1,136.4 km |
| Run | 13 | 14:05:54 | 150.7 km |
| Total | 48 | 57:30:39 | 1,306.9 km |
Probably the best swim month I’ve had in a while so I think I’m as ready as I’ll be for Escape from Alcatraz on Sunday.
How’s everyone else’s training going?
May started badly, 6 days travelling and then I caught a cold which meant a total of 10 days without any training, TSS fell from 61 to 48. I eased back into it and TSS stabilised around 48. I couldn’t build it back as I had the half-ironman on 24th and didn’t want to go into that carrying a load of fatigue.
Anyway, totals for the month were 13.75 hours cycling, 8 hours running and 1.75 hours swimming. Way down on April, but then travel, sickness and recovery after the race took up most of the month.
First ever stand-alone half-marathon this coming Sunday.
Enjoyed first tri in a long time, local standard distance. Would’ve been second in AG but got fourth.
Forgot goggles but 800m pool swim was okay, done in 14:00, caught a puncture in T1 so as I rolled into what was a neutral zone I was told to take my time “it doesn’t count”. 8 mins later I was rolling again and crushing the first of four loops 
. It felt good to hammer it and watch the tarmac fly by, encourage the newbies and generally have fun. Legs were hurting and power meter cutting out, so I went by heart rate and it stayed low throughout sadly. 
Bike was a long way of what I thought were reasonab le estimates but I tried not to let it get me down - I had paced my effort evenly so a minor win. Run course is a twisty hilly wooded trickster but again I paced it pretty well and this time hit my target.bit of back pain which was unusual probably due to using a roadie.
A nice way to spend 2,200 kcal 
Escape from Alcatraz was awesome, it absolutely lives up to the hype. Here’s my race report: