Well, the nerves and anxiety are starting to arrive. I find myself laying awake thinking of my race strategy, and visualizing how I plan to attack it. Having never raced in a race of this calibur, I am a bit nervous, and anxiety sets in when I think of what I need to do before I leave next Tuesday. Of course work just so happens to be very busy and with one of my tech’s out with a back injury I am under a bit more stress at work that I would like.
I have one more solid week of training to go this week. Training wise I am ready, I am feeling as strong as I ever have and my speed is there. With some fine tuning this week, and some rest next I should be able to blast Clearwater (for my standards anyway).
This last week was a strong week of training. I started with a hickup, rolling my ankle leaving my house on Monday, but with lots of ice and ibuprofin it got back to 100% pretty quick. The weather has been very cooperative also, and looks to be good for this week too. The highlights of the week were some very solid splits in some steady sets in the pool, and a 17:41 5k time trial (run) following a bike ride that consisted of 4 x 3 min max effort intervals. Like I said, the fitness is there, I just need to stay healthy and execute on November 10th. Oh yeah I weighed in at 151 on Saturday, pretty much right where I want to be.
Week summary:
17 hours 35 minutes
Swim: 10,500 yards. 3 workouts
Bike: 194 miles. 6 rides
Run: 37.15 miles. 5 runs.
My coach thought I needed a bit of rest this week as I was showing some fatigue in my workouts early in the week. So he cut out my Thursday swim and track workout, and gave me a short swim on Friday. I guess I did not realize how much I needed the rest, but after those two days, I had some geat Swim, bike and run workouts over the weekend. I felt fantastic in my swim and ride on Saturday, going just over 13 minutes in a 1000 yard interval in the pool at sub half ironman pace, then nailing my 30 minute zone 4 intervals on the bike. On Sunday I had a great run going 15 miles in an hour and 45 minutes, the whole time keeping my HR in zone 3. Good week, and I am feeling good.
14.5 hours
Swim: 8,600 yards, 3 workouts
Bike: 170 miles, 5 rides
Run: 31 miles, 3 runs
Another 17 plus hour week. The week started a bit sluggish, monday’s bike and tuesdays swim were pretty blah, but started to feel good in my intervals on Tuesdays ride and light run. Wednesday’s medium distance run was good, as well as my endurance ride. Track workout on Thursday was tough doing mile repeats at 5:40 pace. The key was to not blow out my legs, because my long ride Saturday with 4x 15minute zone 4 intervals was my key workout of the week. I skipped my 2500 yard easy swim on Friday on the count of work. Saturday’s ride with the team was great, nailed my intervals, but the ride was longer (4:10 rather than 3 ) and involved much more climbing than expected (4200 feet). Follow it up with a 40 minute run at HIM pace. Sunday I ran with the team at Forest Park, went 16 miles in 1:54 and felt great. May have pushed a bit harder than supposed to, but am feeling fine today. I followed that run with an hour light on the bike.
Total Time: 17:15
Swim: 11,000 yards. 3 workouts
Bike: 176 miles. 5 workouts
Run: 42 miles 5 workouts
I had a solid week of training this week, I put in 17 hours and am not feeling fatigued, and I have no pains. Again my swims were strong this week, I did alot of pulling and shoulder/back work in the pool. My runs were good, and consisted of a solid track workout and ended with a nice solid 2 hour run with Dave Ciaverella. Biking was different this week as I did 3 of my sheduled rides on the trainer, I hate this rain. Saturday I did a team ride with 4000 feet of climbing, totalling 65 miles. I am really getting some solid benefit from the Ironhead team.
Weekly totals:
17 hours
Swim: 13,600 yards
Bike: 160 miles
Run: 41.1 miles
Not my best week of training, but not bad. That 10k last saturday blew me up. It took me all week for my legs to recover, so my run workouts were all reduced to light, and I cut 1 hour out. My swim on Tuesday felt like crap, but was strong Thursday and Friday. My bike was srong all week, road 5 days, with a 20k time trial at 30 minutes in the wind on Thursday and then 73 miles on Sunday at Livestrong….
The livestrong challenge was just that, a challenge. The weather was brutal, 50 degrees and puring rain the whole time, oh yea and wind. At 7:30 in the morning in these conditions it was tough to get motivated. They cut the 100 mile ride due to weather and only offered the 10, 40 and 70 mile ride, and said please don’t feel bad if you make the 40 mile turn, this was tempting, but I reminded myself what Livestrong meant to me. I pushed through at a pretty fast pace without stopping so I could get out of the elements as soon as possible I finished in just at 3 hours and thirty five minutes. The ride left from Nike and made its way up and around Hagg lake and then back to Nike, about 2200 feet of climbing. This was a good experience for me again. As I was riding I could not help but smile as I thought about how far I have come, it would have been so easy to quit, or not even have started, but that was not even an option for me now. A year and a half ago I would not have gotten out of bed.
