Overdue ATB training update

So I've been lazy the last few weeks and just didn't feel like writing training updates. No, no injuries or issues or anything. In fact, training has been going incredibly well.

Swim: My stroke clinic has wrapped up, and I'm now sure I can manage up to Oly distance without too much danger of drowning. Still plenty of room for improvement (obviously!), but for this year, my swim goal is pretty much just to get through it and onto the bike in one piece, so I'm happy to have done a bunch of swimming and to have gotten comfortable with it. I'm swimming once a week right now to maintain my feel for the water. Next step is to obtain a wetsuit so that I can be ready to try out swimming in open water in the spring.

Bike: The bike plan is KICKING MY ASS. Sweet Spot Base II introduced V02max work, and I've been spending a lot of my bike time making this sort of face:

"I just did 60 minutes of insane threshold/V02max work and I think I might puke" selfie

It's tough stuff! This week is the peak of the plan, then I shut it down on the bike and go into full taper mode for Around the Bay.

Speaking of Around the Bay...

Run: So. Damn. Good. Since the weather changed at the beginning of March the running has been coming together amazingly well. I'm hitting the interval paces, the tempos are solid, and the last two long runs have been phenomenal.

With Nicole. Sam, and Ivanka after a kickass 26k run. I like how happily ever after starts with my head. Photo swiped from Nicole.

I'm into the taper now, although I dunno who came up with some of the alleged 'taper' workouts in this plan, because they are still pretty fast. I have a 5x1000m workout on the schedule for Wednesday that will be an interesting challenge (that's runner talk for 'I'm going to hate my life and wonder why on earth I inflict this torture on myself').

That's my 8x800m SUCCESS smile. If I can pull off the 1k repeats in the prescribed times you'll be able to see my smile from the MOON.

So the bike and the run have been pretty intense for the last few weeks, but... I feel great. My legs feel strong, very little in the way of DOMS even after several days in a row of tough workouts, and mentally my head is in the game. I cannot wait to see what happens at Around the Bay when I'm well rested and not doing crazy shit like a 21k race pace run the day after a 90 minute bike ride with criss-cross intervals that essentially alternated threshold with V02max.

So, there we are! Race day coming up fast. Can't wait.