Fall 2014: Week 10

Moving into the homestretch of quality work before the race, which is now only a few weeks away.

PANIC!

Monday: 33k bike ride. Was nice. Nothing fancy.

Tuesday: I had a really hard time dragging myself out the door for this one, mostly because this was the view:

hello cottage life.

We spent a couple of days at the family cottage - my kids are in the fifth generation of my mom's family to spend time at this cottage, which is a really amazing and special thing. We are very grateful that the owners, my mom's cousin & his wife, are very generous with cottage time.

I did eventually make it out the door for a 10k run. Hot, humid, but I got to run past some very fancy cottages by the lake. Somewhat hillier than I anticipated, but a solid run.

Wednesday: No really, I have to get up and run? I can't just sit here on the dock?

Made it out for 12k ish, although my GPS went nuts during the first 3k, so that's a bit of a guess.

I appear to have been quite drunk during this portion of the run, at least based on my GPS trace!

A solid run. Pace was speedier than usual, even taking into account the GPS wonkiness. Feeling pretty good about things.

Different route with more cows. Deeply suspicious cows.

Post run ice bath in the lake. I wonder if I can get a lake put into my backyard? Because this was awesome.

Thursday: Back at home a little earlier than originally planned because I needed to attend a funeral. But I had time for a short tempo run before I needed to leave for that. 10k total with 4 very excellent feeling tempo kilometers. 5:04, 5:06, 5:01, 5:02. Feeling better about that 5:10/km I need for a PB at Oakville!

33k bike ride in the evening to make sure the bike was in order for the duathlon on Saturday. At one point I was like shit, what's that rattling sound? AHHHHHH! But eventually I figured out it was the stuff in my seatbag banging around. D'oh.

Friday: Rest day. And organize my shit for the duathlon day. So freaking complicated and I don't even swim yet!

Am I forgetting anything? OH MY GOD WHAT AM I FORGETTING??

Saturday: Guelph Lake II sprint duathlon. 2k run, 30k bike, 7k run (a little longer than a typical sprint). Race report is coming (really this time, not like that Rattlesnake Point one I never wrote except in my head). Spoiler alert: it was pretty awesome and I came home with some bronze coloured bling.

Yeah, the race went pretty well!

Sunday: Recovery run. The duathlon took the place of my long run for the week, but I needed to get a few more km in to reach my weekly target mileage. 10k, super humid, just glad the sun wasn't out because I would definitely have quit earlier if I'd had to do that in full sun.

Weekly stats
Run: 53 km
Bike: 94.7 km
Weekly total: 147.7 km in 8 hours 33 minutes

Very good week! I probably should have done a longer run at the cottage, but there was a hammock that really needed someone to sit in it. I think I have my priorities straight.

This week I'm running the 15k at MEC burlington race 4, which I will be using as a long tempo run. I'm both excited and nervous to see how it goes, as it'll be a good test of my readiness for Oakville. One last hard week of training before taper.