Muskoka 70.3 build: week 7 - peak week!

Another peak week done.

Monday: rest
Tuesday: 1900m swim; TR Mist +1 (1:15 VO2 max)
Wednesday: 10k run; 2000m swim
Thursday: TR Gibraltar (1:45 tempo)
Friday: 10k run; 33k easy ride (outside)
Saturday: 108k ride; 7k tempo run
Sunday: 1800m swim + 16k long run

Wow that was a lot. Most kms/hours I've done in a week since some of my peak weeks before Barrelman.

Tuesday's swim was uneventful. Just getting in the distance, really, and counting down until we get that first open water swim.

Nothing to do with anything, I just like daffodils.

Tuesday night, the workout with the highest intensity factor rating in the whole plan. There's another one in the specialization plan with the same rating, but that's weeks away so I don't have to worry about it yet. I've pretty much blocked the whole thing out of my memory now, like childbirth. VO2 max intervals are brutal!

Yeah that's about how I feel about those.

Wednesday I was having a delightful run at lunch, almost back to campus, when I tripped over a curb and went ass over teakettle. My knees took the brunt of the fall which has been just SUPER FUN ever since. Scraping off a layer of skin is a little bit uncomfortable as it heals.

Even the bandaid box is like 'congrats on giving yourself an injury usually reserved for children'.

Overall, though, it could have been a lot worse! So I did the smart thing and signed up for a trail race in a couple of weeks because there's absolutely no way that could end badly.

Seriously, I'm super excited to run Sulphur again with Sam and Nicole. (Why have half the pictures disappeared from that post? grrrrrr). This will be for fun and the fact I'll get in a long run is just bonus. Plus Sulphur doesn't have THAT many rocks and tree roots for me to trip over. Right? RIGHT?!!

Here are some tulips, just because. I didn't take a lot of pictures during my workouts this week.

Friday my computer was being upgraded at work so I wrapped things up at home early and was able to take my neglected road bike out for an easy ride. Way more fun that 60 minutes on the trainer. And it was nice to be reunited again - I love my tri bike, but I'm still getting to know her. The road bike and I have spent so many miles together than I don't have to think about shifting gears, I just do it. And I feel a lot more secure cornering and such. So that was a lot of fun!

Too busy riding these lovely empty roads to take pictures

Saturday my alarm didn't go off (gah! technology fail!) so I was late getting out the door. Still got in a metric century, though, at a pretty decent overall average speed. Then I took a break before doing a 'not a brick' run. Did 7k at tempo (5:22/km ish) and felt really good. My hamstring isn't bothering me at all anymore, so it's definitely time to start adding a little speed back into the run workouts. Just in time for recovery week, so maybe that will wait a bit. OH DARN.

Yay! One week post marathon and I can keep up with the awesome @egrrrl for 10 miles in 1:31:00. Nice of you to show up with perfect marathon weather today, nature. 😐 #runnersmakethebestfriends

A photo posted by Nicole (@macnic05) on May 8, 2016 at 7:15am PDT

Sunday I celebrated Mother's Day by heading off to the pool for an ok swim (ugh, lane sharing issues. Let's just say sharing with a slow-moving breaststroker is the worst), then met Nicole for an excellent, hilly 16k. I should really apologize to her, I thought I'd be pretty dead after the Saturday of fun and was expecting that to be a slow run. Which was fine with her, what with the whole 'having just run a marathon' thing.

Oops. That was about 20 seconds per km faster than planned. What can I say, I was feeling surprisingly good! Pretty great way to end off the week!

Now, a little recovery before moving into the final 8 weeks of race prep. eeeeeeee this thing is suddenly feeling VERY close...

Monday: rest
Tuesday: swim; TR VO2 max
Wednesday: run hopefully without tripping over anything
Thursday: TR over/unders; swim
Friday: run; TR easy
Saturday: 2 hour ride + brick run
Sunday: swim, long run

Doesn't look all that different from prior weeks but there will be a big drop in the # of hours on the bike and the intensity will be way down. Yay for recovery!