Eeek! This week is race week!  I have the Route 66 70.3 this Saturday so this week my training volume is low and my nerves are HIGH!  Not as high as they were for St. George since it’s semi-local (a 2 hour drive, making travel logistics much simpler), I’ve raced parts of the course before (although many years ago) and it’s really just a ‘tune up’ race to see where my fitness is, so there’s a tad less pressure going into it.  Expect full on freak out mode for IMLOU though, even though I’ve gotten more relaxed about races, I’m pretty sure I won’t be holding back on that one, lol. Ok, on to last week’s training:

Training Week 29: 7/16 – 7/22

Monday – 2650y swim at lunch, followed by an hour of yoga after work

Tuesday – Speedwork… it was going to be a hot day today, so not a great one to oversleep and not get my workout done before work.  I headed to the track around noon and knew it was going to be hot: red track, no shade, middle of July…ugh.   So I decided to wear my new long-sleeved spf shirt that JMR got me for my birthday to at least avoid getting burned and possibly having it cool me when it got wet from my sweat.  Well, it kept the sun off for sure! However, my sweat wasn’t getting it wet enough so the cooling effect wasn’t working very well.  The next time I wear it, I’ll make sure to constantly get it wet so it will have the cooling effect as well (or after doing more reading, I’ve found that in humid places, the cooling effect just doesn’t work very well in general).

JMR said the shirt made me look fast.  🙂

Wednesday – Sleep won again so not only did I have to do my trainer ride after work, but I also ‘got’ to do my swim after it as well!  That loomed over my head all day and made me slightly cranky all day.  Around 5p I hopped on my bike to do my trainer ride, then I relaxed for a bit, had a snack, and headed to the pool at 7:15p for the 7:30 lap lane swim time.  With a small amount of drama at the pool (which is why I prefer going in the morning, when people are there to swim, not mess around), I got it done and headed home.

Thursday – I got my butt up and got in my 1 hr trainer ride, followed by a 2 mile run before my 7a meeting (that I took from home), and then after the meeting I showered and headed into the office.  On days like that I feel like I can justify shutting down at noon, obviously I don’t, but halfway through the day I’ve gotten a lot of stuff done between working out and work!  It was so nice to come home and do nothing, so I was very happy with my decision to not hit snooze that morning!

Friday – 2800y swim the am (no snooze button again that day!) , followed by an hour of yoga at lunch.

Saturday – 2 hour trainer ride followed by an hour easy run.

Sunday – 2 hour trainer ride, which didn’t look that hard when reading it in TrainingPeaks, but my legs were pretty tired from the tough rides during the week and the day before, so this was harder than I felt it should be.  I got it done though!  Also watching the Tour de France helped keep me motivated too 🙂

Fancy setup.

Total Training Hours: 12:56

My hip/glute has been kind of cranky since speedwork on Tuesday so along with a sports massage this past Monday, I’ve been taking ibuprofen, stretching a ton, taking Epsom salt baths, and threw in a couple of extra yoga sessions as well.  Fingers crossed all of this helps in time for the race on Saturday… I’m trying to keep from a full on freak out as it does seem to improve with all of the things I mentioned, so hopefully doing that, and maybe not even doing any runs this week, it will be ready to go on Saturday.

Eeek, T-2 days before I toe the start line again!