I am deep in training and therefore very behind on my training updates!  I’m still finishing up my Racine race reports and should be done soon!  Now, on to the training updates!

Week 20:

Monday – Rest day.

Tuesday – 40 min easy run at lunch followed by a 2500 yard swim after work.

Wednesday – 1:30 trainer ride on Peaches (my road bike) since Lola was in the shop. I feel bad for having ignored Peaches for several years (!), but Lola is just more comfy!  It was also JMR’s birthday, so we went to Annie Gunn’s to celebrate with my parents.  The food was soooo good.

The gifts may or may not have all been running related. Also, I selfishly got a cookie cake because I was craving cookie cake..and JMR likes it too 😉

Thursday – I overslept and missed my 3000 yard swim (I had big plans to get it in Sunday afternoon, which did not happen), but did get in my 1 hr aerobic run, 6.2 miles, after work.

Friday – I was heading to the lake for a family weekend, so I took Friday off to get in my long ride, 70 miles.  Even though there weren’t any hills on this route (and I do need them), I rode the MCT trail because I was riding solo and I felt safety trumped hills.  After the ride, I did a one hour run… and it was HOT and I didn’t have any water, but I did it!  I have been slacking on my runs off the bike during my long rides and after how my run at Racine went, I vowed to no longer slack!

After the run I hopped in my car and drove down the street to a Culver’s and ordered a large water, a large soda (coke :)) and a chocolate milk.  The lady kind of looked at me like I was crazy.  I forgot I had my earbuds still in and well, I was drenched in sweat.  I’m sure I looked nasty.  And probably smelled just as bad. 🙂

Saturday – 15 mile long run at the lake!  My last 16 mile long run I did there was, well, just awful.  I know that hills are good and build up strength, but seriously?  No run course I will ever do will ever have hills like these!  So this time around I stuck to a 3.3ish mile loop with small hills…which I did 4 times and then did a little more to make it 15 miles.  Phew.  I was glad to have that run in that location finally done.  No more runs at the lake this year 🙂

Sunday – 1 hr easy spin on the trainer on Lola 🙂

Total Training Hours: 12:53

Week 21:

Monday – Rest day.

Tuesday – 30 minute run at lunch (was supposed to be 45 but my stomach wasn’t a fan), followed by 2650 yard swim in the evening.  Which I think was my slowest swim ever this season. I just did NOT want to be in the pool, I kept running into gross clumps of hair, and the water had a funky smell.  In two weeks they were closing the pool down for an annual cleaning, and heck yeah, it needed it.  Every lap I thought about getting out of the pool and going home, but somehow I managed the full swim and was very happy to be done.  No more hair clumps for the day.  Ick.

Wednesday – 2 hour trainer ride followed by a 2 mile run.  This was tough, I haven’t done 2 hours on the trainer consecutively in a long time.  I don’t want to do many more of those!

Thursday – I overslept and missed my swim (maybe it was on purpose), but did get in my 1 hour run after work.

Friday – 3450 yard swim in the morning (the one I missed on Thursday), which was a very different experience from Tuesday.

Longest swim of the year so far!  My watch doesn’t pick up kick sets which is why it’s only showing 3375 yards.

I think early in the morning the water is less churned up and whatever gross things I ran into on Tuesday were still hanging out at the bottom of the pool.  From now on that is motivation to do the rest of my swims in the morning.  After the swim I did a short 1 hour ride on the trainer.  Then I was busy packing up all things triathlon to head to Verona, WI for the WIBA (Wisconsin Iron Brick Adventure) weekend!

This was only my running shoes, bike shoes, helmet and water bottles….

WIBA is an organized IMWI training weekend for athletes to swim in the lake, ride the bike course and run the run course.  I was pretty nervous but also pretty excited.  I finally hit the road around 12p, hoping to arrive at the hotel by 5:30 to make the 6p group dinner.  Since this post is long enough, I’m making WIBA weekend its own separate post 🙂

Saturday – WIBA weekend

Sunday – WIBA weekend

Total Training Hours: 16:28 Longest training volume so far!