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...