Ironman training week 13

Last week, last week, what the heck happened last week? Life is turning into a blur of swim, bike, run, cook, laundry, occasionally hug the children, 40 hour work week, possibly some sleeping, etc and I can barely remember what I did this morning, much less a week ago.

Swim: 7050 m
Bike: 253.8 km (8:30) (!)
Run: 49 km

Monday: rest day

Wasn't feeling great Sunday afternoon/evening and woke up feeling even worse on Monday. Headache, tired, some stomach stuff, just all around awful. I ended up taking a sick day from work and resting all day.

Tuesday: TR Gemeni

Due to being sick on Monday I didn't even bother setting my alarm for swim on Tuesday. Fortunately I felt perfectly fine Tuesday morning, so back at training in the evening. However, maybe not fully recovered because I crashed hard on the 4th VO2 max interval and ended up just riding the rest of the workout out easy. I should have dropped the workout intensity a bit when the first one felt just terrible, but I thought I might be able to tough my way through it. Sometimes, though, that only lasts so long...

Wednesday: 2550m swim; 8.5km run; weights

I realized I keep taking this same shot over and over again. I guess I know what I like!

Swimming felt hard, but got it done. Then I ran after work. It was fine. The Wednesday run should be longer than that, but it was my first run since taking some time off for my back/hip, and I wanted to be cautious. Good news is, everything feels back to normal there. At least until the next time things go wonky on me. Human bodies are very poorly designed.

Thursday: 2500m swim; TR Phoenix + 6km brick run

I remember literally nothing about that swim. I recorded it and it happened, but sometimes when you swim at 5:30 am you don't really form any memories...

feeling like a drowned rat after a very rainy brick run

In the evening, a solid tempo ride and then a run in the pouring and very cold rain. I thought I was being clever wearing my tri shorts on the trainer so I wouldn't have to change for my run, but it was NOT shorts weather and I got cold by the end of that one!

Friday: TR Eclipse; 7k run

Back on the bike early in the morning for some sweet spot work before heading out of town for Easter dinner with my family. I was not looking forward to this one but it went OK.

Then the highlight of the day was definitely getting in a short run with my brother before Easter dinner. We rarely get to run together because we live too far apart (and he's way faster) so this was really fun.

I don't think we can cross here...

Saturday: TR Longfellow; 7.5k recovery run

Longfellow. 4 hours.

Still not entirely sure how I made it through that with sanity intact. Fingers crossed things warm up before the next long one and I can go outside, because the paincave is getting pretty tedious.

still smiling, so it can't be that bad!

Sunday: 20k long run; 2000m swim

Not my best work. Hard sunrise to photograph for some reason.

Easy peasy, a bit cautious in case my back or hip started hurting but everything was fine! Yay!

Overall, another really solid week of training. Can't complain. Getting into a good groove with what days/times I'm doing what, and although I skipped one weight training session this week, I'm generally hitting all the targets I want to be hitting at this point of the training.

Now, to just cut back a little on the Easter chocolate consumption so I don't have to buy larger shorts...