Winter Triathlon?

I saw a story on a triathlon website about the ITU Winter Triathlon World Championships. Who knew that they was such a thing? The race was held in Norway, were the temperature at the race start was 17F!
So what exactly is a winter triathlon? They start with a 6K run (on trails covered in snow), then a 10K mountain bike ride on they same snow covered trails, and finish with 9K of cross-country skiing.

Sounds fun, huh?

YESTERDAY'S WORKOUT:
One hour of weights only. Chest, back, arms and abs.

TODAY'S WORKOUT:
Ran 7.43 miles in 59:21 (7:59 min/mile pace)
Due to all of the time off, I'm still in the Base Phase of my training, which means that all of my runs (with the exception of intervals) and rides are supposed to take place in heart rate zone 2. With all of the time off recently nursing my knee injury, I've lost a lot of the fitness that I developed. Because of this, my heart rate is higher than it used to be when I run. I need to focus on keeping my HR in zone 2 (152-164 bpm) when I run to try and build my aerobic fitness back up to where it was a month ago.
During my run this morning, my HR was hanging out around 165 for the first 2 miles. Even though I didn't feel like I was pushing it, I made the effort to slow down...and my HR responded. As you can see in the chart below, my mile times took a hit, but my HR dropped back to where it should be, around 158 for the remainder of the run.

It's frustrating to have to slow myself down when I know that I can run faster, but endurance is the key...and the best way to increase my endurance is to train in zone 2 right now...even if the pace suffers.