Ironman training week 8

A bit of a recovery week this week, with lighter volume on the bike. Why is it that recovery weeks end up feeling weirdly exhausting?

Swim: 6950m
Bike: 120.79 km (4:15)
Run: 48.46km

Monday: 11k run; weights

Bye snow! Won't miss you at all!

Got started on increasing the distance on one of my weekday runs, since Monday was a holiday and all. Solid and unspectacular, really. Also this meant I had no rest day this week, which probably helps explain the whole weirdly exhausting thing! I am SMRT.

Tuesday: TR - Haku

In which I finally remember to put the trainer in slope mode before each sprint and manage to get the power targets about right.

Short VO2s on the trainer in the evening. Farewell to 20 second maximum efforts, at least for now, as the next stage of the training plan brings in longer VO2 intervals. It's just a different kind of suffering (but better because I don't have to fuss around with trainer modes on the longer ones!).

Wednesday: 2500m swim; 9k lunch run; weights

Note to self: find somewhere else to take pictures when you run on the powerline trail. Also those tights may be the most comfortable thing in existence, but they sure ain't flattering.

Nothing fancy, just the usual Wednesday stuff.

Thursday: TR - slide mountain

who has shoulders? THIS GIRL!

12 minute sweet spot intervals. Felt pretty good, especially after skipping out on both swimming and running that day. Just a busy week at work that left me pretty tired.

Friday: 2400m swim; TR - Table Rock

Celebrating that that work week was about over

Forced myself out of bed to swim and then did the evening sweet spot intervals. Between work and staying up too late watching the Olympics, I was really dragging this whole week.

Saturday: TR - Cumberland; 8k brick run; weights

This is where things really caught up to me. I made it through the long tempo ride on the trainer, but my heart rate didn't lie - way higher than usual on this ride, and it was a struggle. The run felt pretty decent after (probably because of the weather being so nice!) but it's a good thing the Olympics are now over because I clearly need more sleep!

Didn't take any pictures in the morning, but did have penne carbonara for dinner, so feast your eyes on that deliciousness. I assume, based on the way it tasted, that it consisted of about 90% garlic. So good.

Sunday: 20k long run; 2050m swim

Saving the best for last? Solid run, although I was underdressed for the first half, then the sun came out, the temperature shot up, and I was overdressed for the last few km. But it was a nice easy paced run and watching the waves/surfers on Lake Ontario kept my mind occupied.

Then I had a weirdly fantastic feeling swim. I was really relaxed and taking it easy but somehow swimming fast (for me). Maybe it was being in a different lane than usual at the pool, but it really felt amazingly good. Here's hoping I can recapture that relaxed/efficient stroke again this week!

Next up:

On to things getting intense again on the bike, and a little half marathon thing on Sunday. I'm treating it as a training day, since I'll be doing a 3 hour block on the bike trainer on Saturday, so seeing what kind of a run I can do Sunday after that is a nice little training test. Plus, opportunity for sweet instagram posts with my running friends, which is really the only reason to do a race.

Ironman training week 7

So I've settled into a pretty good schedule for this ridiculusness (which of course today I upended completely, with today being a holiday and all). So far things are shaping up as so:

Monday: rest
Tuesday: early morning swim; easy short lunch run; TR evening
Wednesday: easy short lunch run - this will soon be changing as I'll be able to get back to early morning runs. I'm going to start lengthening this one out to get in 10-15k, eventually. Some days that will all be before work; others it'll end up a double run day. Then in the evening, weightlifting
Thursday: early morning swim; TR evening + brick run
Friday: 'make up' day if I missed any swims or runs earlier in the week (the Thursday swim and/or run may end up here instead); TR in the evening
Saturday: long ride day + short run; weights
Sunday: long run day + swim

So far, it's pretty manageable. 2x a week weightlifting, 3x swimming, 4x cycling, 5x running. Taking it week by week, especially as the amount of time I'm spending on the bike increases.

Now of course, that's kind of the ideal schedule. Reality often intrudes! And sometimes I can make things easier on myself, like this week I was off work on Friday, so moved the Thursday swim to a more reasonable hour Friday morning. Because why get up at 5 when you don't have to! Realistically, workouts are going to get dropped. My focus is on keeping up with the cycling, because to me, that's the key event to get right to make it through the Ironman in one piece. It's the largest chunk of the day, so I want to be as strong as possible there. Swimming and running I feel I can drop workouts here and there without affecting the overall training too much.

This week ended up as:

Swim: 2:19 (6800m)
Bike: 7:05 (206.3km, whatever that means on the trainer)
Run: 4:42 (48.46km)

Monday: rest

Tuesday: 2300m swim; 8k lunch run; TR Fuji

Off to run up the escarpment at lunch, as one does.

If the day starts with a T, it's time for a Triple.

Also pancake Tuesday. Pancakes of all types for every member of the family (I may have stolen some of the kid's 'sprinkles' pancakes. They were kind of awesome)

Wednesday: 9k lunch run; evening weights

Supposed to be a heart for Valentine's Day. No, not sure how I managed to make that look totally awkward and not really like a heart at all...

Easy run in the sun and the warm and YAY! Just one of those days it's great to be alive and active and it's all good and happy.

now I understand why people always post this for deadlift photos. Your face looks ridiculous when you are at the top of the movement!

Solid effort in the weight room, too, on a gym date with the husband. Roses are Red/Iron is Black/Let's go Lift Weights/Because that's romant-ack.

A poet I am not. But the pink socks for Valentine's day were on point.

Thursday: TR Phoenix

Since I had Friday off, I didn't swim, and then Phoenix was tiring so I didn't run. Only one sport on a Thursday?! There's that reality intruding.

Friday: Swim 2300m; TR Antelope

underwater angles are hard to work with

Solid swim, good sweet spot ride on the bike.

Then instead of doing a run I made cookies. I regret nothing.

Saturday: TR - Town Hill; 8.5k run

SO BORED. Also this selfie prompted me to finally clean up the mess of boxes of stuff from Costco cluttering up the back of the pain cave/pantry.

The first of the truly long trainer rides (I'm arbitrarily declaring longer than 2 1/2 as truly long - Town Hill is 2:45). Wasn't bad, although I was super bored by the end. Ended up playing a lot of golf solitaire on my phone, which perhaps isn't ideal from a training perspective, but it helped pass the time.

Ah the magic of filters...

The run was not a brick, but just an easy one later in the day. It's rather nice that after almost 3 hours on the trainer my legs both felt fine doing this run, and I had no trouble motivating myself to do it! The base fitness is coming along nicely.

Sunday: 22k long run; 2200m swim.

Yet another selfie after my cool insta pic idea was a big fail.

Really great feeling long with Fab and Christina. A little faster than is ideal for me right now, but I was surprised how well my heart rate stayed under control and it didn't feel all that hard holding what was probably around a 5:40/km pace for the whole thing (it's unclear because my Garmin went completely cuckoo for like 6km and so the recorded paces are whacky fast in spots).

My pictures do not do justice to how blue the water looked here.

Then a quick swim before we spent the afternoon with my brother and his family and my parents for family day. A short walk along the water where he does a lot of his running, and I discovered that what I assumed was the clever use of filters to make the waters of Lake Ontario look super blue was not at all the case - the water over at Port Union really did look incredibly blue! I'm going to have to go over there to run with him sometime and learn his photo secrets.

Next up, a recovery week on the bike! Always look forward to those. Just keep on keeping on...

Ironman training week 6

Settling into a groove of sorts with this training thing. But I can't help but hope spring gets here a little bit faster!

Monday: weights

Oooooh not a rest day! My husband wanted to come check out my gym and switch his membership there (YAY!) so I ended up getting in a quick full body weights workout while he checked things out and did the paperwork. And now gym dates in our future! It wasn't something we thought much about before, but now that our older daughter can babysit the younger one (and they are both old enough to be generally trusted to not burn the house down), it'll be nice to go workout at the same time, even if we aren't doing the same things.

Tuesday: 9k run; TR Berryessa

I was feeling a little off Monday night while trying to sleep, so I cancelled my early alarm and skipped swimming. I figure it's always best if you feel like you are coming down with something to go with more sleep and skip the workout.

You are saying there's going to be how much snow tomorrow? Can't you do something about that?

Older daughter was running a fairly spectacular fever when she woke up Tuesday morning, so probably for the best I got the extra sleep! I worked at home and was able to get in a run after my husband got home - extra important to squeeze that run in knowing we were in for a pretty good snowfall on Wednesday and a run that day might not happen at all.

Each of those pointy bits hurrrrrrts

Tuesday night, VO2s. How can 20 seconds of effort hurt that much? Considering the whole workout includes not even 3 minutes of all out effort, it was completely exhausting. Left me with sort of pleasantly sore and tired legs when I went to bed.

Wednesday: 2500m swim; 7k treadmill run

Fish practice

Snowy Wednesday so I got to work early at home and wrapped up in time to get in a late afternoon swim at the pool. Much more civilized than 5:30 am! Pretty solid feeling swim - I no longer feel exhausted and like I'm just going through the motions after 2000m. Instead I feel strong and energetic through the whole thing. Not any faster, but I'll take added endurance.

Nice fivehead

Because of the snow the sidewalks were a mess, and since I didn't love the idea of running through 10 cm of fresh snow, I went back to the gym in the evening to do 45 minutes on the treadmill. Nothing fancy, just putting in the time.

Thursday: 8k lunch run; TR Tunnabora

I didn't get up early to swim on Thursday for reasons I no longer remember (probably something to do with the bed being all warm and cozy). Damn that bed.

typical February. Grey, bleh, but at least the path was clear of ice.

Easy 8k at lunch running back and forth on the rail trail, since it was largely clear pavement. I am getting mighty sick of that trail but given how this winter is going, there's a lot more running back and forth over there in my near future.

The TR workout was cadence focused, which is always super fun (no it isn't). Tired legs after that!

Friday: TR - Tallac; 2000m swim

Worked at home Friday due to yet more shitty weather, but that meant I knocked out the sweet spot intervals at lunch and got in a solid swim in the late afternoon.

Saturday: TR - Cumberland; 6k brick run; weights

Current theme song

Cumberland is 1:15 spent mostly in the lower end of the sweet spot range, making it manageable but a bit of a grind to get through. Not easy but not really hard, either. Productive physically and mentally.

The slog through the snow after for 6k felt a lot less productive. I am officially over winter.

Then I was going to lie on the couch all afternoon but the husband wanted to go to the gym and we talked each other into it. Teamwork. Solid session of weightlifting, although my squat progress remains stubbornly slow.

Sumday: 3200m swim; 10k treadmill run

With the weather being total garbage, I decided to cancel doing a long run this week and opt for the safety of the treadmill. I have never felt better about not doing Around the Bay this year. It's the right decision for a variety of reasons, but the chance to sleep late on a Sunday morning, hit the gym with the husband, and then grab lunch with him after in the gym restaurant? That all worked out very, very nicely.

Well, other than the fact my bathing suit has started chafing me terribly around the arms/shoulders. I really wanted to swim 3800m but I started feeling the chafe at around 2800 and had to call things off. I'm claiming it's due to all the muscles, but really it's probably that I've been overdue to replace that suit for about 6 months now.

OH! And also is there anything quite as demoralizing as having someone who looked to be older than Methuselah jump in the lane next to you and immediately start cranking out laps far faster than you can swim? Doing backstroke, no less. #lifegoals

view: uninspired

The treadmill was boring but manageable. The secret, for me, is definitely podcasts - I can't watch TV on the treadmill because being prone to motion sickness, it totally throws off my equilibrium - just the thought of using Zwift running makes me nauseated. And music isn't distracting enough. But an interesting podcast and the time just flies by. Currently catching up on Radiolab. I debated going another half hour for 15k but the treadmill shut off automatically after an hour and the husband suggested getting burgers and, well, I will pretty much never turn down a hamburger.

There was a burger on this plate at one point, I swear

So, solid week, no complaints. This week is going to be more of a challenge, both because the TR workouts are ramping up in a serious way, and the current sidewalk conditions could best be described as 'maybe you should just try skating'. One day at a time to figure out how to get it all done.

Ironman training week 5

Winter is really throwing wrenches into the training plans these days. Between cold and ice and snow planning out running in particular has been tough. Plus it's so hard to motivate myself out of bed early in the morning when it's cold.

With that said, though, it was a solid week! I started my Trainerroad plan (after finally settling on which one to use; I only changed my mind about ten times...) and it feels good to be back on a more structured schedule.

At least so far. Let's revisit that when I get back into the tough workouts.

Monday: rest

Tuesday: swim 1900m; TR FTP test

Not much to say about the swim, but oh the FTP test.

Those don't ever get easier. I mean, they can't get easier or it wouldn't be an FTP test. I felt like I nailed the test pretty well, even being out of practice, and my resulting FTP was 10 points higher than where I left off last winter after I got sick, so I guess all those random spins around Zwift helped with fitness going into this. So now it's a 12 week base training phase to see how much stronger I can get.

Wednesday: 9k lunch run; weights

Searching out clear paths at work at lunch, as usual. Not much exciting happening with running right now, other than the fact I'm enjoying it a lot. When things aren't covered in ice.

Weights in the evening was fun, as usual. Big plates make a very satisfying clunk when you put them down.

Thursday: 2400m swim; TR Cumberland; 6k brick run

Entirely too much technology, really.

Thursdays are shaping up as one of the tougher days in the schedule. Will generally be trying to swim, bike, and run that day (although the run won't always be a brick). It's a good challenge. Although I maintain winter bricks are just the worst, with having to do a complete clothing change between the bike and the run.

Friday: 19k long run

Since the forecast looked pretty sketch for the weekend, and we were both home from work for a PD day, Nicole and I met up to get our long run done early Friday morning. It was really fucking cold, but it's amazing how fast the miles go by when you have a friend with you. It felt like no time and we were done!

ALL THE LAYERS

And then I took the kids out for a PD day breakfast, because I was pretty much thinking about eggs benedict for the last hour of the run.

Get in my belly

Saturday: 3100m swim; weights; TR Ericsson

Weird Saturday for me, since with the long run on Friday my legs were tired and I didn't want to do my long ride. So instead I started with my longest swim ever. Then in the afternoon I went to lift weights because I thought the trainer ride I had to do was an easy ride. If I'd been smarter and checked first I'd have flipped the order around and done weights after. D'oh.

But it worked out fine in the end, although I sure slept well that night!

Sunday: TR Big Squaw; 8.5k run

Long easy ride (2 and a half hours) and a run later in the day when the snow had melted into slush. Got a little bored towards the end of the long ride but the power target seems about right for where I need to be to do those, so I'm satisfied things will go well over the next 12 weeks.

Other being totally over winter and not enjoying this having to try and cram things in when everything isn't covered in snow and ice, so far it's all going really well. On to the next week!