Wow, I cannot believe it’s already August!  With training keeping me so busy, time really seems to fly, September will probably be here before I know it!

This was a big week, the biggest of the season and the most I’ve ever trained in a week (only by an extra 26 minutes though) and I’m guessing I will have one more week like this in my last build before I taper (the week of the 17th)…and I’m little scared just thinking about it!.  Ok, on to my training:

Monday: Rest Day, and it was really needed after spending the weekend in Madison. My legs were toast and my throat also felt scratchy…so lots of vitamin C and rest before it turned into something worse!

Tuesday: 1 hr aerobic run, 6.38 miles, at lunch followed by 3100 yards in the pool after work.

Wednesday: 2 hour trainer ride with some tempo efforts, followed by a 2 mile run.

Thursday: I overslept and missed my swim :(, but did my 1 hr tempo run after work, 7.04 miles, man was I moving!  The run felt great (in my new shoes!), but my legs were pretty tired after.

Asics Gel Kayano. Been rocking them since 2011.

Friday: I had a 7a meeting, so I did my 1:30 trainer ride reallllyyy early since I had to make up my missed swim after work.  So.  I was up and riding at 4:30a.  Yeah, I don’t think I ever want to do that again.  I finished and was at work by 6:50a.  That has to be a record for me.  I left work at 4p (and boy was I tired) and dragged myself to the pool.  Thank goodness I only had 2500 yard to swim.  I was in bed by 8:30 that night. 🙂

Saturday:  Long ride – 100+, and I was ready!  The plan was to ride my usual 53 mile route in Columbia and ride it twice.  I had one friend who was doing one loop with me, another doing both and another guy who is doing IMWI (that I hadn’t met yet) who was also planning on riding two loops.  Well…. things didn’t turn out as planned, the friend who was doing two loops with me completely overslept, so he was a no-show.  Bummer.  We did run into two other people in the tri club that were riding four hours, so we started with them.  Safety in numbers!

So back to things not turning out as planned… my lovely 13 miles of hills had gravel EVERYWHERE.  I think I was riding 13mph most of that route in fear of crashing.  Once we got through that section I thought that we were done with the gravel, but no, another 10 mile section had gravel.  Ugh.  Two loops wasn’t happening if I wanted to make sure I didn’t crash!  We ended up sticking with the group riding 4 hours (since one of my ‘loops’ was only three hours), and then dropped them and my friend off at the parking lot with only about 60 miles done.  Sigh.  So my new IMWI buddy and I headed out in the flats to ride 20 out and back. I was really sad to not be riding hills, especially after now knowing how hilly IMWI was, but safety trumps hills.

We chit-chatted about the race, work and other random triathlete things (how much laundry we have, the newest gear, race nutrition…you know, fun stuff like that) and before I knew it, we were already turning around.  The last 20 miles were a bit tough as I was tired, but we pushed through and got it done.  When I hit my watch after we got back to the parking lot, I saw it only read 99.5.  Grr!!  I thought about doing loops in the parking lot, but decided .5 miles short wasn’t THAT big of a deal. 🙂  I changed into my run gear, said goodbye to my new buddy, and headed out for a 5 mile run. I forgot my headphones, but the miles sort of flew by and my legs didn’t feel terrible either, just tired.  After the run I drank my recovery drink, got a coke and headed home.  I was tired!

Sunday: I was up early for my long run – 3 hours.  I was tired just thinking about it.  However I dragged myself to Forest Park and got moving.  The first 13 miles weren’t terrible but after that, I just mentally did NOT want to run 5ish more miles.  I stopped in the Visitor’s Center twice to refill my handheld during those last 5 miles… talk about procrastinating!  Before the run I had decided I really wanted to get in at least 19 miles, so I figured I would just run a few more minutes after hitting the 3 hour mark to make it an even 19.  Well… that didn’t happen.  I hit my watch after three hours and the distance was 18.51 and I was very ok with that.  Phew!  I was finally done with this training week and very excited to have the next day off 🙂  Once again, I was fast asleep by 9p that night.

Since my post only has one picture, here’s one of Patrick checking out the storm we had roll through Sunday evening.  He likes to be in on the action!

Patrick isn’t afraid of storms!

Total Training Hours: 17:26