Barrelman training update and a race this weekend!

After signing up for Barrelman, I got right into my first two weeks of training, with an 11 hour training week and a 13 hour week. I'm a little amazed at myself that I managed to find that many hours in the week, but it turns out if you look for them (and coordinate with your wonderful husband), you can pull it off. Also, #5amrunclub. Pretty much a necessity. There are advantages to training in the summer (holidays, lots more daylight hours), but disadvantages too (the kid's camp schedules change from week to week, too hot to run at lunch, my lunch hour pool is closed for maintenance). Juggling it all is quite the challenge!

Wow, that suddenly seems like not a lot of weeks until the race.

The hardest thing is, as always, swimming, just because there's limited times that pools are open, and limited times when I can find a partner to swim with at the lake (and I won't swim there alone for safety reasons). But I managed to get in all my planned swims, bikes, and runs! Off to a great start.

Swimming in the lake and the 50m pool have completely ruined me for the regular pool. 25m is so short! So many walls! Too much turning!

The training is going very well so far, which is excellent because it's pretty intense. Fortunately I find it fun (I better, or I wouldn't be doing it!). What's also really awesome is many of my favourite fellow athletes will also be at Barrelman, doing various events, and there's a big group from the tri club doing either the solo race or relays. At the end of the day the race itself is a solo endeavor, but there's going to be an amazing cheering section and supportive crew! I'm getting really excited about this!

Bike selfie fail. That's Sam in the background conquering Snake Rd. She secretly loves climbing, don't let her tell you otherwise. 

This week the hunger hit. I remember this from marathon training - there are days I could really just eat everything in sight, then go back for seconds. Mmmmmm, food. Daily Mile tells me I burned 8000 calories last week. That explains a lot. I need to buy another case of oatmeal from Costco. And maybe a barrel of trail mix, so I don't end up eating nothing but junk food all the time.

Canada Day poutine and fry feast. Seriously, food is just fantastic.

I'm doing my next triathlon on Saturday - the Kincardine women's tri. This is not a goal race for me; this is more about getting in some transition practice, and doing a race that my kids can watch without losing their minds from boredom. Since it's a super sprint (375m swim, 12k bike, 3k run) each leg is quite short and so they won't have to wait long to see me! I'm hoping we'll have a fun morning. And it will be kind of interesting to see what's it's like to go all-out over such short distances (I suspect it'll be rather like running a 5k race - very painful...)

Spending a lot of time getting familiar with this track these days. Building speed and leg strength. It's working so far.

My husband and I also firmed up our fall plans. Obviously Barrelman is my main goal, but he wants to go for a new half marathon PB at Niagara Falls, so I signed up too so we can make a weekend out of it. Plus Sam and Nicole will be doing it too (and anyone else we can talk into it!). It's a month after Barrelman so I won't really be doing any training specifically for the race, just recovering and then doing whatever feels right (hopefully some long leisurely admiring the fall colours runs and rides). It will likely be more of a fun thing for me than an all out race. But before I worry or even really think about any of that, I have a few triathlons to get through!