Ironman training week 15 - base training peak week

Wow, it's hard to believe that it's almost the end of base training. This week was week 11 of the Trainerroad plan, which meant the biggest hours of the whole plan before the final week, which is a recovery week.

Things went really well, when mother nature allowed them too. It got a bit messy over the weekend, shall we say, and I have just the tiniest bit of regret over missing my recovery run and a weight training session. But if I have to skip a couple of workouts, those are probably the best ones to miss, and given how we had an Icy Kill Storm on Saturday through Sunday, well, I'm glad I managed to fit in everything else!

Swim: 7700m
Bike: 9 hours (272 km)
Run: 45 km

A little light on the run miles (I like to be over 50k for the week as a minimum), but I had good reason to be...

Monday: rest

Tuesday: 2400m swim; 8k lunch run; TR Alice

Well that angle didn't work. Have to try that one again.

Really solid swim. I'm not entirely sure what's happening but the small changes I've made to my stroke recently seem to be good ones, since I was hitting under 2 minutes per hundred paces on this one pretty easily.

Lovely little run down to the bay at lunch, where I saw Reid Coolsaet twice so we are like totally best friends now. Wished him good luck at Boston, then spent 10 minutes doubting that maybe he wasn't running Boston and I'd just made myself look like a total goober. Fortunately, he did run Boston, so I only looked like a dork for other reasons, like the rampant selfie taking.

VO2s in the evening. Unpleasant. I don't wanna talk about it. There's all these unpleasant looking ones coming up in the build plan and I am not looking forward to it.

Wednesday: 13k run; weights

sunrise, sort of?

Slogged out the midweek long run at 5 am. It was fine. Not every run can be awesome, sometimes they just happen and you record them and move on with your life.

Could I be any more awkward?

Weights in the evening. Wasn't in the mood and overate at dinner, but I went through the motions at least.

Thursday: 2500m swim; TR Gibraltar + 5k brick run

Cliche swimmer photo that I framed wrong so couldn't use on instagram. You'd think I'd have this down to a science by now, but no, probably 75% of the pics I take are useless or weird in some way.

Solid swim. Early. Not sure I woke up until it was over.

So thrilled to be wearing summer clothes! Of course, that didn't last...

Evening ride was tempo, and then it was totally spring and warm and I went out for a run in shorts and a tank top and it was great and I ran into a friend and was able to run back with her and YAY everything.

Friday: TR - Spruce Knob

2x30 sweet spot intervals. Nothing fancy.

Saturday: 18k long run; 2800m swim

Mid run selfies are important.

Due to Ice Stormmageddon, swapped my bike to Sunday and met up with Nicole and Amy to see how much of a long run we could manage before conditions deteriorated too much.

Waterlogged and freezing, but DONE.

Let me tell you, if I'd been solo, this run would have maybe lasted 10k. It was windy, cold, spitting rain, then eventually absolutely pouring rain. 18k was plenty to manage in that bullshit. So, so happy to have the girls join me and I'm going to be roping them into a bunch more of my long runs this summer, whether they like it or not. I have a feeling I'm going to need the support as things get longer!

Another really great feeling swim later on on Saturday. Fingers crossed that keeps up!

Sunday: TR - Putuo

Somehow the fact this was a 4 hour 15 minute ride and not a 4 hour 30 minute ride like I originally thought made it seem about 20 times more reasonable. I know that makes no sense, but does any of this make sense, really?

Other nonsensical things: April ice storms. And that's why this ride was on the trainer instead of outside.

I dunno, this went really well. I zoned out listening to the new Drake song for like an hour and a half, and scrolled twitter and instagram and chatted with friends over messenger and somehow it just wasn't bad. I got tired, I had to take a bathroom break at one point (and change my bra, which was soaked through, gross, but I felt a lot better with a new one on), but it was really pretty solid.

FOUR DAMN HOURS.

That said, OMG I cannot wait to get OUTSIDE if this stupid winter ever ends.

No weights or recovery run, because ICE STORM OF DOOM, but as I said, if I'm going to miss a couple of workouts, those are the best ones. And it was still a massive number of hours for the week - my stravistiX add on had me trending into the overload area after the long ride, after being firmly in the 'optimum' zone all week. So maybe it was good I didn't do anything else. But I'm feeling really great, and looking forward to tackling the next phase of things after a well-earned recovery week!

Well that's not real promising. Can we get some spring weather around here? Please?!