Life and work have both been busy,  but I figured I better write an update before it’s August!   The past few weeks of training have been ok in the swim and bike departments, but not so much in the run department.  I missed a long run due to a migraine and then the following week my 12 mile run got cut short to a 10 mile death march due to the heat, however this past weekend I got in my long run (although not fast), so hooray for that.  Usually the run is my favorite and strongest area, but lately that just hasn’t been the case, I’m blaming it on the heat, but regardless it’s a little frustrating.  This week the weather is supposed to be much cooler, so hopefully I will see my old/faster paces on my run this evening.  Fingers crossed!  Steelhead is only three weeks away which means this week is my last big week before my coach eases back the volume to taper for the race.

July 5-10

Monday – Recapped in previous post, 10k race

Tuesday – 7ish miles of hill repeats and core work

Wednesday – 2450 swim (overslept and went to the Cardinals game that night, so I wasn’t able to fit it in), 1 hr on the trainer at lunch.

Thursday – Easy 3 mile run followed by weights/core work

Friday – off (yay!)

Saturday – 2100y time trial swim.  Much slower than anticipated, swam it in 38:03, and left the pool sad.  I was planning on riding that afternoon but had a migraine and moved it to Sunday.

Sunday – 10 mile long run  2 hour ride with 1:40 at race pace.  I rode with a friend who hasn’t been riding much this year, but welcomed the company as I still wasn’t feeling 100% after the migraine the day before.  We did an out-and-back ride on a bike trail and rode at a slower pace than planned, however there were rabbits jumping out across the path so I didn’t feel very safe pushing the pace in fear of a bike wreck hitting one of the poor rabbits.  Once we got to the turn around point, I decided to keep going for a bit more since we were 5 minutes short of an hour, and pushed the pace hard, and when I turned around I kept pushing the pace closer to race pace as it seemed like the bunnies were settled for the day and not hopping out randomly as much (although I did almost have an incident hitting one 5 miles from where we were parked.  Yipes.). Once I made it back to our cars, we headed out for a 3 mile run.  Definitely not the planned 10 mile run but it was hot and I was glad I at least got some miles in.  However I vowed to not miss any more long runs if possible.

Total Training Hours: 6:27 (not counting the 10k time)… eek, with my missed run it was kind of a low volume week given that Steelhead is very close.

July 11-17

Monday – Rest Day/yoga

Tuesday – 7ish miles of hill repeats, followed by core work. I think I’m getting better at these because this time I didn’t have to take a break in between repeats and didn’t feel like I was dying by the end.

Wednesday – 2450y swim (Overslept yet again, nooo!  However I did make it up Thursday am), followed by 1 hr on the trainer after work.

Thursday – 2450y swim in the am, with an easy 3 mile run in the afternoon followed by weights/core work

Friday – rest day

Saturday – 50 mile ride: 30 min warmup, 1 hr race pace, 10 min rest, 1 hr race pace and finish the rest of the miles easy.  Welllll… the ride didn’t exactly go as planned, I had joined a group that was riding in my favorite spot, Columbia, IL, and knew that this group was faster than me by a bit.  However, since most of my ride was at race pace, I thought maybe it would work out.  Holy moly.  The first hour we averaged almost 20mph.   So much for a 30 min warmup.  There was none of that, just pedalling realllly hard to keep up and not get dropped.  We did hit a patch of gravel for 2-3ish miles and I got dropped there because I just go really slow in gravel, but everyone slowed down after the gravel to let me catch up.  Thank goodness for that.  Eventually the pace dropped to around 18mph and I didn’t feel like I was holding on for dear life and actually got to chat with a few of the other cyclists.

Once we hit the turnaround the guy who was dictating the pace decided he was doing his zone 2 interval and off he and few others went, and I just could not keep up.  Good grief, his zone 2 was my zone 4.. my heart rate was up in the 170’s!  I tried hard to try to catch up but with the headwind we had on the way back and my heart rate going crazy I finally decided to just ride at my planned pace and let them go.  I arrived back at my car with a total of 54 miles at an 18.7mph average.  That’s pretty darn fast for me, and if we hadn’t hit that stupid gravel I’m sure the average would have been closer to 19.

After refueling and resting for a bit I headed to the pool to do another 2100y time trial.  I was determined to have a better time/pace than last weekend and really pushed myself.  I was pretty pumped when I hit stop and saw 35:43 on my watch!  So Effingham wasn’t a fluke, I could swim faster than the 38:xx that I did last weekend!

Sunday – 12 mile run.  Saturday night JMR and I went out to dinner with my family to celebrate my parent’s 40th wedding anniversary, and after dinner my sister and her husband wanted to get drinks after since they had a babysitter watching the kids (rather than a family member), and wanted to take advantage.

When we headed home it was late (for me), and a late night + drinks is not ideal for a long run the next day!  I slept in a bit and got a late start, which was a terrible idea with how hot it was going to be that day.  It was 90 (feels like 95) when I started.  Ouch.  After two miles I wanted to quit, however with what happened last weekend, I just couldn’t face having missed TWO long runs… with my A race only a month away.  It was a horrible run, with lots and lots of walk breaks, but I got in 10 miles, and even though it wasn’t at the planned pace and two miles short, I still got (most of) it done.

Total Training Hours: 9:22

July 18-23….This week was kind of a mess with moving around workouts so darn much due to work and the heat.

Monday  –  rest day

Tuesday – 8 miles with 6 @ race pace.  As I mentioned earlier, work has gotten quite busy and I was up early working and didn’t shut down until around 8p and was pretty darn tired (and it was HOT out) so I scrapped the run.  Sigh.

Wednesday  – 2050y swim  I had an early meeting so swimming before work wasn’t happening and my pool is closed in the evening until 7:30p for classes, which is too late for me to swim if I actually wanted to sleep that night.  Soo… I did Thursday’s planned 3 miles easy at lunch as the heat index was over 100 and running 8 miles with 6 @ race pace was not a great idea.

Thursday – 3 easy miles (ran on Wednesday)  I was determined to get that darn 8 miler, so I got up early and hit the road before work.  Holy cow.  It was sooo humid out.  Once I warmed up, I tried to move the pace to the low 9’s but quickly started to feel dizzy/nauseaus.  Are you kidding? I even ran with water and that didn’t help much. After another mile in the mid to high 9’s I decided that this pace run wasn’t happening and cut it short to 6 miles at around a 10 min pace since I had an 8:30a meeting and would be cutting it way too close running 8 miles and that slow of a pace. We had tickets to Coldplay that night (such an awesome concert!!) or I would have considered scrapping the run after the first mile and doing it on the Treadmill after work.

Friday – Since it was JMR’s birthday, we I took the day off of work and slept in since we didn’t get home until almost 12:30a the night before. Late night for us!  Once we got up I headed over to the pool for a 2050y swim in the am, followed by the afternoon at the zoo, lunch at the Boathouse in Forest Park and dinner at Circle 7 Ranch.  We went to Circle 7 because JMR had designed the retail space where it is located a couple of years ago and had always wanted to try that restaurant.  We weren’t overly impressed but we both ordered burgers, so if we go again, we’ll order something different.

Saturday – 30 mile ride in Columbia, IL with mixed in hills, very uneventful ride.  Ended up closer to 34 miles, at a not very fast pace, close to 15mph.

Sunday – 10 mile run at 6:30a.  Heat I will beat you!  (Humidity I did not) This was a tough run but better than last week and I was able to finish with minimal stops at a not as slow pace as last weekend.  After the run I hung out at home for a bit, refueled and then headed to the pool to swim 2500y.

Total Training Hours: 7:26

So I’ve had some ups and downs over the past three weeks, ups being a speedy long ride and fast (for me) time trial 1.2 mi swim and the downs being almost all of my runs (or at least it feels that way)!  With the cooler weather this week I’m hoping to add another ‘up’, as in a good run 🙂  Happy Monday!