Well last week was a light week training-wise, since this past Sunday was my first race of the season, the Cutting Edge Half Classic in Effingham, IL. I’m just finishing up my race report so more on that later!
Monday – Rest Day
Tuesday – 1 hr ride on the trainer wiht 2×10 minutes @ race pace
Wednesday – 1400y swim
Thursday – Easy 3 mile run
Friday – Rest Day
Saturday – Travel Day
Sunday – Race Day!
Total Training Hours: 8:10
Over Memorial Day weekend I attended Team Endurance Company’s training camp in Columbia, MO. Between the extensive packing list and the pre-camp nerves (will I make any friends? will people think I’m weird?) it brought me back to feeling like a 10 year old kid going back to camp again.
Friday: I did a quick spin on the trainer to see how my abductors were feeling (ok!), and then got to packing. Good grief. I felt like I was going to be gone for a week! So many clothes, so much food (mostly nutrition for the bike and snacks) and so much gear! Finally around 2:30p I was ready to roll and head to Columbia.
Lots of clothes/gear/food!
Since it was a holiday weekend I was worried about hitting a lot of traffic, but fortunately it wasn’t too bad and I arrived at the pool we were kicking the camp off at a little before 5p.
When I arrived there were two other people there, and older lady and and older gentlemen, and they seemed to be deep in conversation so I just fiddled with my phone and tried to look busy. Then a few other girls around my age arrived and they introduced themselves and we made small talk. Eventually the coaches (my coach and the other coach, who is the owner/founder of Endurance Company) arrived as well as a few others from their entourage (wife and significant other) and we were ready to start! Apparently since they had just filled the pool it was in the mid 50’s. WHAT?! Several people had brought their wetsuits and were suiting up, and boy was I jealous I hadn’t brought mine 😦 However, as we were slowly (well, I was slowly) getting in the water, lightning struck and we were forced to wait 20 minutes. Then 20 minutes later it struck again and you could see that a storm was rolling in, so the swim was called off and we headed to the house the group had rented for the weekend.
On our way there the skies opened up and it started pouring. Once we got to the house, unloading my car was a lot of fun since my bike had a bike lock around it and the rack so it took some time to unlock it, then get the bike off the rack and carry it into the garage. After that whole process I was soaked. Then I quickly made two more trips to carry in my gear/bags and I was finally in for the night. I changed shirts but I still looked like a drowned rat, such a great way to meet 15 new people. 🙂 The coaches had ordered pizza for everyone and we just hung out in the kitchen chit-chatting. Everyone seemed very nice and welcoming, so hopefully this meant that the weekend was going to be fun! After dinner we had a quick session on how to upload maps on your garmin and then we all turned in around 10p since we had an early start the next day. Also, I had really lucked out and got my own bedroom, I was expecting to sleep on the floor somewhere, so hooray for that.
Saturday: The group was up at 6a, I ate breakfast, prepped my bottles (I had one bottle of 3 hrs Infinit and one with water), put on a crap ton of sunscreen and then headed outside where everyone was gathered to get ready to ride.
Lola racked in the garage and ready for a weekend of riding!
Off we went, and I ended up doing most of the ride with an older man (who is fast and wins his AG) and since he usually does olympics, I was able to match his ‘slower’ pace for this ride. The weather was really nice, the roads were great and the motorists were very friendly too. Only one honk! Other than several heart-attack enducing hills (which deep down I love hills that are challenging), it was a really fun, relaxing ride. We rolled back to the house with around 64 miles on my Garmin.
I relaxed for a bit until the head coach came back from the long ride route (they were doing 100) and I rode with him (car not bike :)) to the pool where we were doing our swim analysis. The pool was pretty cute, I had no idea we were going to swim at a swim school.
The pool, walls and ceiling were painted with cute animal figures and scenes, and it made for a very amusing swim.
After the coach finished taping myself and the other four athletes that were there, we headed back to the house where we had pulled chicken and pork, cole slaw and baked beans for dinner. Yum. After dinner we talked about training with power. I had already been slightly considering a powermeter, but I was really overwhelmed with the various options/types (and prices!) that were out there. I currently train with heart rate, but I know it isn’t as reliable/accurate as power, so I knew if I wanted to improve my training/racing, power was probably the next best investment. (I still haven’t purchased one yet, but am getting closer to finding the best one for me!) After the talk we we were all pretty tired and headed to bed around 9:30p.
Sunday: Up at 7a and after breakfast we headed to the outdoor 50m pool for an hour long swim session. The pool temperature wasn’t as bad as it was on Friday, but it was still chilly! I had trouble seeding myself as I seemed to be in between the pace/speed of the two different groups. I ended up going with the faster group but it was pretty frustrating feeling so much slower. I couldn’t wait to go over my swim analysis with my coach to see what I could fix/improve to gain some speed. After the swim we headed back to the house and headed out a little before 11a for our rides. Many of the people that did the long ride the day before were switching to the shorter (60 miles) ride today, so it was fun to have a bigger group. Off we went and I ended up riding with two other ladies who were riding at a similar pace (they are much faster than me, but they both aren’t training for any upcoming races so I was taking advantage of their ‘slow’ pace :)). Once again, the weather was great, the roads were great, and the hills, well, there were some big @ss hills again.
The top of one of the steeper hills we climbed that day
Since we started later in the day it was much hotter than Saturday’s ride. I made sure to take my enduralytes every hour and stay on top of my hydration.
Lola taking a break during one of our stops at a gas station to refuel
The only eventful (ha) part of this ride was when a dog darted out of a yard and proceeded to chase/nearly bite me. I tried to sprint away but didn’t realize I was in my little ring, so much for ‘sprinting’. Fortunately I got away unscathed but it gave me a little scare. (Note: what you are supposed to do is either yell ‘Go Home!’ in a low voice or slow down, not encourage it and ride faster. Oops)
When we got back from our ride it was HOT out. I still managed to do a one mile transition run, followed by a recovery shake, followed by a beer 🙂 After I showered I headed to the store with my coach and his significant other to pick up dinner. We had lasagna, garlic bread and salad. Carb heaven 🙂 Following dinner we all headed inside to watch a powepoint presentation my coach had put together regarding mental toughness. He played a couple of inspirational videos that really pumped you up, and after his talk/presentation, I think we were all ready to go out and ride or do something! Finally after winding down we all headed to bed around 10p. One more day to go!
Monday: I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t really in the mood to ride again, and nor was my undercarriage. That’s a lot of riding it isn’t used to yet. Anyways, I rallied and by 7:30a we were all gathered outside the house ready for our last ride. I stuck with the two ladies again and once again, I had so much fun riding with them. This route was by far the hilliest though and man, there were some tough hills.
Climbing a 22% grade hill
I was glad that we started earlier and it wasn’t as hot as Sunday’s ride or it would have probably been a pretty rough ride. The miles flew by and before I knew it we were turning back into the subdivision after 47 miles. It was getting really hot out so we hung out in the garage, had our recovery shakes and watermelon and waited for the others to get back. Once a few of them pulled in, I headed downstairs to shower and get packed up. By the time I had packed up my car and was ready to go everyone had gotten back from the ride, so I said my goodbye’s and hit the road.
What a great weekend. It really turned out better than I had imagined (and honestly, I was really anxious about the camp) and was so glad that I went. I have my first 70.3 of the season coming up on June 12th, and several of the athletes from the camp will be there (including my coach), so I’m excited to see everyone again, and also to race. Hopefully this bike-heavy camp put some important miles into my legs. Oh, also, I did NOT get burned! I used spray sunscreen on Saturday and Monday and Sunday I used armcooler/spf sleeves. Winning combination 🙂
We had another busy weekend this past weekend, which really made it fly by again. Next weekend will be busy too (traveling for Effingham 70.3) but after that we won’t be traveling for a while. I’m a little relieved as I am ready to get into the routine of longer rides/runs and then doing stuff around the house (so many projects to still do!) or relaxing with JMR.
Monday – Included in last week’s post since it was part of ECo Training Camp
Tuesday – Rest Day
Wednesday – swam 2150yds before work
Thursday – 3 mile shakout run. My legs still felt like lead.
Friday – Rest Day/Stretch
Saturday – 2 hour ride followed by 2 mile run. JMR’s cousin was getting married that afternoon in Quincy, IL, so I got up early and rode my trainer for 2 hours which during the second hour got realllly boring. I’m officially ready to do my long rides outside, so hopefully that’s the last 2+ hr ride on the trainer. After I was done riding I hopped off my bike, headed outside to run 2 miles, and after the run I quickly showered and packed.
We made it to Quincy around 1p, just enough time to hang out with JMR’s parents for a bit, get ready and then head out at 2:15 since it was a 45 min drive to the venue, a local winery. It was a good thing we left early (which I’m not so great about doing), because we got a little lost and it took closer to an hour. Once we arrived, we hung out on the big deck on the back of the venue and talked to a few of JMR’s relatives, and as it got closer to 4 (the time of the ceremony) we headed down to the gazebo near the lake where the ceremony was taking place. The wedding started a little after 4, the bride’s dress was beautiful, and with the exception of a few small snafu’s (one of the ladies helping arrange her dress and veil once she entered the gazebo accidentally pulled the whole veil out! The maid of honor quickly put it back in her hair and the ceremony carried on) it was a beautiful ceremony. I can’t believe this is the first wedding I have attended since our wedding! It definitely brought back a few memories from our wedding day 🙂
After the ceremony we did family pictures and then headed back inside the main venue for dinner, dancing and drinks. We had a great time hanging out with JMR’s family and dancing – I even got JMR to dance to a non-slow dance song! We were one of the last groups to leave at around 11:30p and after dropping JMR’s grandma off at her house, we finally got back to their house around 12:30p. That’s late for me! I don’t think I was even up that late at my wedding! Once we got home, I got ready for bed and fell asleep the minute my head hit the pillow.
Sunday – Between the late night and a bit too much wine/beer, I was pretty darn tired on Sunday, thank goodness it was an off-day, I needed it! After laying low and doing some laundry, we headed to my sister’s house at 5p to celebrate my niece’s 4th birthday (Ariel themed of course :)) We left around 7:30p and by 8:30p I was fast asleep on the couch after I had started to watch a movie with JMR. Whoops. Good thing it’s a 2 day rental and I can watch it tonight. I was tiiiiired.
Total Training Hours: 3hrs 25 min
Since yesterday was a rest day, today I have a swim on the schedule, and even though I’m still a tad tired from the weekend, my body is ready to get moving again (even though it is just a short swim, and I’m not going to complain!). This week is race week which means easy/short workouts, lots of water (NO soda or alcohol), clean eating and strict bedtimes! I definitely indulged on Saturday and a little on Sunday (lots of bread and who could turn down a piece of Ariel cake?) so I’m ready to get back to healthier eating!
Happy Monday!
Back to the grind after a long weekend, and a busy one at that! Before I get too behind I wanted to do a quick recap of my training and happenings over the past two weeks, which included a half-marathon race recap as well as a training camp recap. So let’s get started!
May 16-May 22
Monday – Rest day
Tuesday – Tempo Run: 1 mile warmup, 2 miles @ 8 min pace, 4 minute recovery, 2 miles @ 8 min pace, 1 mile cooldown. Ouch. Those were tough.
Wednesday – Off/Stretching/Foam rolling
Thursday – 5 mile run I woke up with a scratchy throat and felt achy. My coach told me to scrap this run, load up on vitamin C and rest.
Friday – Off
Saturday – Bridge the Gap Quincy Half-Marathon. I thought about writing a race recap for this one, however it just wasn’t very eventful, so there wasn’t too much to devote an entire post to. JMR’s parents picked up our packets for us on Friday since we were arriving that evening after it closed. Once we got into town, we had a quick dinner at Applebees (I stuck to my bland pre-race food, grilled chicken and potatoes) and were in bed by 10p. Saturday we were up at 6a, I ate my usually pre-race banana and when we arrived at the start at 7a, I ate a few honeystinger chews. 20 minutes before the start I did a 1 mile warmup, and then headed to the start and did some stretching.
When the gun went off, the first couple of miles felt pretty darn good, and were a little bit under the planned goal time of 8:20, but after those miles I made sure to hold back/keep with the planned pace. Miles 2.5-5.5 were an out and back section, and I saw JMR as I was heading to the turn around and we gave each other a quick high-five 🙂 I could also see there weren’t very many women in front of me, however the 10k hadn’t split off yet, so I wasn’t sure how many of them were running the Half-Marathon. At that point I felt good and felt that way until around mile 8, and then things started to feel tough.
Mile 9 I fell a little off pace, around 10 seconds slower. Miles 10.5-12.5 were in this awful boring out and back near a boat dock and they were lonely and miserable. Mile 10 was also 10 seconds off and I was pushing pretty hard to keep that pace. Mile 11 was worse, 9:08 and I just wanted to be done. Sadly mile 12 wasn’t any better and I kept falling off the pace, clocking in at 9:31 and I even ended up doing a little bit of walking at the beginning of mile 13 (I KNOW) because it just felt so awful. It was like hitting the wall at mile 20 in a marathon, but good grief, this was only a half! Finally I mustered the energy to get my butt to the finish line, with mile 13 clocking in at 9:46 and I have no idea what the extra .1 was (and I was .2 over in distance) but I sprinted with whatever I had left to come in at 1:54:24. Ouch. 2 minutes slower than Go!.
After silently sulking and thinking it over for a couple of hours during the drive home (and texting with my coach), I felt better after texting my coach. He said that I had hit the paces I needed during training to run the planned race pace, and perhaps whatever bug I had on Thursday probably still was a little in my system and that’s all my body could do that day. I do think that maybe having caffeinated gels would have helped a little (I had eaten plain vanilla without caffeine), but he was probably right. Bummer, this just wasn’t my day and there will be other races. Time to move on.
Sunday – Rest day
Hooray for small races, I still managed to snag 3rd in my AG (it’s a pin…no I haven’t worn it yet) and placed 8th overall out of 111 females
Total Training Hours: 3:00
May 23-May 30 (training camp ended on Monday so I’m lumping that day into this week of training)
Monday – Rest Day
Tuesday – Tempo run that was shortened into a 3.5 miles due to a very tight/sore right hamstring
Wednesday – 1800 y swim
Thursday – Rest the leg day/Massage. Turns out that it wasn’t my hamstring that was causing the pain, it was my abductors, and oddly enough my left one was waaay tighter than my right, but the therapist said that usually the pain presents on the opposite side from overcompensation. Interesting. Also, that was a *painful* massage. Friday my abductors were tender to the touch.
Friday-Monday – Team ECo Training Camp
Total Training Hours: 13:31
Phew! I’m still pretty wiped out (especially my legs) from last weekends events, thank goodness training this week has been light/low volume 🙂
Happy Friday!
Well this week was probably the most I’ve trained in 2016 and it felt good! I still get the tired afternoon lull on days where I do a swim or run in the am, but it’s getting better, so hopefully after a couple more weeks I will feel awake all day long 🙂
Monday – rest day
Tuesday – 6.5 mile tempo run: 1 mile warmup, 2 @ 8 min pace, 4 min easy, 2 @ 8 min pace and 1 mile cooldown. That was rough with so many hills, hopefully the hilly terrain around my neighborhood will make me stronger.
Wednesday – 2300y swim in the am I overslept, followed by a 2 hr trainer ride after work. I’m getting tiiiired of these long rides (well, long to me!) on the trainer!
Thursday – 2300y swim (missed swim from wednesday), followed by a 5 mile run (3 @ 8:25) at lunch.
Friday – 1900y swim in the am, followed by 40 min of strength training after work.
Saturday – 3 hour ride, with hill repeats in the middle. This ride was tough for a couple of reasons: 1. I rode solo since my usual riding buddies were out of town, 2. after doing the hills, I rode an hour in the flats and the wind was insaine. INSAINE. 20+ mph gusts, which forced some of my effot to only 5mph even when my heart rate was in the 160’s. The last 15 minutes my legs were on fire. I have had mixed feelings of not having any bricks on my schedule after my mid week rides or my long rides, but I will say with certainty that I was more than glad to not have to run after that ride.
Mid ride at a gas station, you can’t beat pure sugar + caffeine for a boost of energy!
Sunday – 8 mile run, 1 mile warmup, 6 at race pace (8:25) and 1 mile cooldown. It took me a couple of miles to get settled in, but after that I was in a groove, so hopefully that means good things for the race on Saturday!
Total Training Hours: 9:56
Hooray that today is a rest day, however I only have two runs on the schedule this week (not counting the race on Saturday), so I have a feeling by Wednesday I will be getting a little antsy!
Well this past week flew by, I can’t belive it’s already Monday again. The week was busy with work and training and over the weekend we went to Quincy on Saturday to visit my mother-in-law (early Mother’s Day lunch) and then went to my sister’s Sunday late afternoon for Mother’s day. One thing I tried to work on this week was getting up earlier in the morning and getting at least one of my workouts done (if I had two that day) before work, and I did do it most days, so hooray for that! It makes for a much more relaxing evening after work, plus I haaate eating dinner late, I get cranky, JMR can attest to that.
Monday – Rest Day 🙂
Tuesday – Speedwork at lunch (3.25 miles) and swam 2750y after work. The main set called for 20 x 100. Mentally it was tough to force myself to do that long of a set!
Wednesday – 1 hr trainer ride in the am with 4x 5 min intervals @ TT pace.
Thursday – 5 mile run before heading into the office with 3 @ 8:25 pace.
Friday – 3300y swim in the am (looong swim for me), followed by core/weights at lunch. Side note, it was weird going to the gym twice in one day.
Saturday – I didn’t have time to ride outside since we were headed to Quincy that morning, so I got up early and rode 2.5 hours on the trainer. I don’t think I’ve ridden that long on the trainer in years, and I don’t think I want to do that again for a long time! 🙂 It was a tough one too: 3, 6, 9, 11, 11, 9, 6, 3 minute intervals @ TT pace. My legs were struggling by the last two intervals.
Sunday – My last ‘long’ run before the Quincy half-marathon, 10 miles with 8 @ 8:25 pace (the planned race pace). It wasn’t exactly a continuous 8 miles, I had to stop at a few stop lights and it also included an emergency bathroom stop around mile 6.3, so hopefully I can hold that pace during the race!
Total Training Hours: 8:43… getting up there!
That’s about it, Happy Monday! 🙂
I don’t know what I was doing during my workouts before I started working with my new coach or if I am working harder because I’m more worried about what he will think about my times/paces, but these past two weeks have kicked my butt! My arms feel like noodles and my quads are not a fan either. Time-wise I am not training that much, but the intensity factor has definitely increased.
April 18 – 24
Monday – Rest Day
Tuesday – Speedwork during lunch at a park near my house (soon I’ll start going to a local track nearby, I just need to get up earlier!), followed by a 1950y swim after work.
Wednesday – 55 minute ride on the trainer which incorporated 10x 30 second intervals as-hard-as-you-can-go with a 2 minute recovery. I did this workout at lunch. Big mistake. I just wanted to lay down and sleep the rest of the afternoon. Lesson learned, I need to do these trainer rides before or after work.
Thursday – Weights/strength training in the am and a 5 mile run at lunch with 3 miles @ 8:30 pace. Getting speedier.
Friday – 2850y swim before work (hooray! I only overslept a little), swim is getting speedier too, 1:49y avg pace.
I’m trying to cut out soda completely, but after getting up early to swim (and it was a loong swim for me), I was dragging by 1p.
Saturday – 3 hr ride outside which incorporated a mix of hills and lots of headwind. I was pretty tired and surprisingly crabby the rest of the day. Usually I am in such a good mood after my long rides, however I’m cutting out the post-ride beer and carbs (with the exception of my Infinit recovery drink, repair) so maybe that’s why. My body better get used to it ASAP because those days are over! 🙂
Sunday – 5 mile run with 3 miles around an 8:25 pace, however my legs did not show up so it was a sufferfest, I think the ride yesterday wore them out.
Total Training Hours: 8:10
April 25 – May 1
Monday – Rest Day
Tuesday – Speedwork at lunch followed by a 2750y swim after work, however I am trying to get these darn swims done in the am before work. My sister has joined the same fitness facility that I belong to and has been swimming most mornings, so I am making it my goal to get to the pool in the mornings so I can swim ‘with’ her. I say ‘with’ because she is a FAST swimmer…I think she could probably do my swim workouts in half the time it takes me, so I would just share a lane with her 🙂
Wednesday – 45 minute trainer ride, with 10x 5 second intervals even-harder-than-the-30 second-ones-from-last-week with 55 second recovery. Ok, ok. I know I said I wouldn’t do my coach’s mid-week trainer sessions during lunch, but since this one was only 45 minutes, I thought it would give me a tiny bit more recovery time before hopping back at my desk. It did, but I was still tired. Fine, I’ll get up early and do these darn trainer workouts in the am.
Thursday – weights in the am, and 5 miles at lunch with 3 @ 8:30 pace. Legs felt good!
Friday – I overslept. Shocker. Since Friday is my in-office day and my pool closes the lap swimming lanes on Friday for ‘wave hour’ from 4-8p, I caved and paid $ to swim at another pool after work to get my swim done. 2650y @ $0.04 a yard.
Different lockeroom, same old swim. Proof to JMR that I was actually at the pool
Saturday – Go away raaaainy weather. I ended up riding the trainer for my 2 hour ride, which wasn’t horrible (the boring-ness factor that is, the ride was tough, not horrible, but close to it), but by early afternoon it was nice and sunny out, so I was bummed I rode inside instead of waiting and getting out later in the day. Although I really like to get my workouts on the weekend done early so I have the rest of the day free, so waiting until the afternoon probably would have been annoying anyways.
Sunday – 8 mile run with 6 miles @ race pace. Ha. Well, I failed at this run. I was aiming for an 8:25 pace, which I hit during the first of the six miles, however then I had a huge downhill followed by a stomach cramp and decided that even though I was running an 8:15 pace, to just go with it so that the run would be done faster. Well, by mile 4 I was running out of steam and struggling to hold even an 8:30 pace. By the end of the six miles I realized 8:25 might be a stretch on race day. Boo hiss. Between the warmup, 6 miles at pace and the cooldown I averaged an 8:40 pace. And I was spent. Well, hopefully my legs will be feeling a bit more fresh on race day.. at least that’s what I keep telling myself.
Total Training Hours: 7:31
Today is a rest day (hooray) and I’m definitely taking it easy. You’ve probably noticed a lot of workouts ‘at lunch’ compared to my training last year….back in February my team was given the option of working from home 80% of the time (1 day in the office each week), which I more than happily took, so I have time to squeeze in a workout at lunch rather than after work if I don’t have meetings that conflict. However, as my workouts get longer, especially runs, 5 miles is about all I can do with still having time to stop sweating and shower before I hop back online to work, I will need to get them done in the morning. This week is the first week I’m *forcing* myself to get up early and get in at least one of my workouts for the day, hopefully it’s a successful week!
A few more pictures before I go, as I mentioned previously that Saturday am was rainy but the afternoon was beautiful…well, that evening it took a terrible turn, we had a huge storm blow though with hail included! It was pretty crazy.
View from the couch.
So much hail it looks like we just got snow!
At least it was followed by not one, but two rainbows 🙂
Ignore the boards that are caving in….a new deck is on our to-do list.
The past few months I’ve been in a rut with my training. My running wasn’t improving much from the off-season (actually the past couple of years it has seemed to get slower rather than faster), I could hardly drag myself to the pool, and I had trouble forcing myself to get in rides longer than an hour on the trainer. I took a good chunk of time off after the Chicago Marathon and did very light training over the holidays so I didn’t feel that taking a break from swim/bike/run was the solution. After giving it a lot of thought, I decided it was time for a change and am working with a different coach this season. I have only been working with him for a few weeks (and I was traveling for work one of them, which limited my workouts to running or weights), so it’s too early to see if there have been any improvements/changes, but I am feeling a bit more excited and motivated about my workouts because they’re something new and different. I guess I will find out during my next race, the Bridge the Gap Half-Marathon on May 22nd!
Race-related updates, I ran the Go! Half Marathon on April 10th in 1:52:29, not close to my PR (and I wasn’t expecting to PR due to my low mileage/slower runs so far this season), but it was a little better than expected. I am hoping to go sub 1:50 in Quincy – it is a flatter course so that should help!
JMR was having a fun hair day. I’m blaming it on the wind since he ran so fast!
Time is flying and before I know it I’ll be in full swing with racing and large volume training. After the Quincy Half, I am heading to Columbia, MO during Memorial Day weekend for a triathlon training camp that my coach is co-leading. Three days of biking, running and a little bit of swimming, I definitely will be tired by that Monday evening! Then two weeks after the training camp weekend I’ll be heading to Effingham, IL to race the Cutting Edge Classic 70.3 where I have some unfinished business to attend to after the horrible race I had there last year (I am bringing Eduralytes this time!).
Non-training related updates, I traveled to Madison, WI for a work certification in March and for a conference last week. The training and conference building was right next to the path I ran along when I went up for the WIBA training weekend last July. Memories.
The path on ran on is actually past the farmhouse, but you get the idea 🙂
One night for dinner we went downtown and ate at a restaurant right off of Lake Monona. I’m not going to lie, I did get chills driving by Monona Terrace and seeing parts of the race course. I am more than excited to hopefully come back in 2017.
There will be no panic attacks the next time I swim in you!
That’s about it! I plan to get back into my weekly training updates now that I’m getting back into a routine and (hopefully) being more consistent with my training 🙂
After my last post in December I took a short hiatus from my blog and along with it, my training as well. I did manage to mostly keep up with my running and biking, but did zero swimming. Two weeks ago I finally said ‘Enough is enough! The off-season is over!’ and started taking my workouts more seriously. I was also very tired of seeing so many little red boxes in TrainingPeaks. So with a bit more fire under my feet, I started to get back into the swing of training (swimming too!). My weekly hours are still low, but I’m putting in pretty hard efforts on the bike and I’m seeing my running paces slowly but surely getting speedier.
Week of 2/22:
Monday – 1 hr ride: 20 min FTP test. Was hoping for a teeny tiny bit higher of a number but ended up with 178 FTP, which isn’t terrible, and hey, it’s still the beginning of the season.
Tuesday – AM Strength Training: 40 minutes, PM: 45 minute run (4.9miles)
Wednesday – 1 hr ride on the trainer
Thursday – 2500y swim (oh so very slow)
Friday – 1 hour speed work session on the treadmill. I HATE doing speedwork on the treadmill. I think it’s a mental thing, but it seems tougher than doing speedwork outside. However, I had to get the workout done before work, so treadmill it was. 1.5 mile warm-up followed by 3×6 min efforts at 5k pace with a 3 min recovery in between. Ouch. The last one I thought I was going to puke. Finished with 1.5 mile cool-down, for a total of 6.75 miles
Saturday – 1:15 on the trainer, followed by a 2 mile run
Sunday – 10 mile run @ 9:20 pace. In beautiful weather. In shorts. I kind of hope winter is gone for good, I’m ready for some warmer weather.
Total Hours: 8:25
Non-training updates, I finally put together all of the office furniture I ordered. I guess I should back up a little. When I had my mid-year review at the end of January, I was given the option to work from home 80% of the time (I was currently able to work from home 50% of the time), and of course I jumped at that opportunity! However, the third bedroom in our house, which is ‘the office’, wasn’t so much an office as it was a room to put stuff that we weren’t sure where to put it yet. Lots of documents, a couple of boxes…and more documents/files. I did have my desk from my condo set up and JMR had his drafting table set up on the other side of the room, but it just looked like a hodgepodge of furniture with lots of documents, and didn’t feel like an official ‘office’.
Soo… after doing a lot of research, I finally pulled the trigger and ordered two new desks, a little cabinet, and an office chair (we only had one and were sharing it). I started working on assembling the cabinet a couple of weeks ago and it took (I’m not kidding) four hours. Maybe I was reading slowly, maybe it’s because I was half watching TV as well, but it took for-ever. So I didn’t exactly jump to assemble the other pieces of furniture.
The small size is deceiving as to how long it took to assemble
Finally on Saturday I decided to tackle the smaller desk. Surprisingly it only took 2 hours:
JMR’s drafting table is back in the corner. It was quite the mess while I was assembling.
Still need to organize and file our many papers, but it looks better!
Sunday I was ready to tackle the final desk, however it was the largest. Oh boy. It took longer than the other desk, but wasn’t terrible, around 3 hours or so (I didn’t take an official ‘before’ picture, so below is a random one from a few months ago):
Old desk.
New desk. Isn’t it Beautiful?
Looking like an official office! Loving the new chair too.
Now we just need to paint… get area rugs… hang pictures… sigh. But hey, at least the furniture matches now!
Well that’s about all of the updates I have – happy Tuesday! I’ll leave you with a picture of Patrick watching the Westminster Dog Show:
Two posts in one week, woah! I figured that while training isn’t on full throttle (and probably won’t be until February), that I’d post short updates on training and also on other random life happenings, which could be boring, so this might be short lived.
Training-wise, I now finally have a strength training routine to do 1-2x a week (along with yoga 1x a week), which I’m excited about. Maybe my abs which have been ignored in the past will finally become a six pack (ha, right), or at least stronger. Aside from the usual biceps, triceps, shoulders and back routines with free weights and some of the leg machines, my trainer threw in some other circuit type routines which pretty much killed my core and glutes, well mostly core, but my glutes need some help too (the hyperlinked exercises were taken from pulseos.com):
As I (hopefully) get stronger, I plan to up the reps and also the times for the Side Step Squat.
One other exercise that still hurt after the third session was the Stability Ball V-Pass:
15 of those in a row, and I promise areas of abs you didn’t even know you had will be crying. My last session was on Monday and today (Thursday) and they’re still slightly sore!
One last training update, I am LOVING this ridiculously warm weather for December. This is the second time this week I have run outside in shorts!! I’m sure eventually the typical winter weather temperatures will return (based on the forecast, not until next Wednesday, hooray), but until then, I’m going to enjoy every minute wearing running shorts and exposing my pale legs.
I mentioned in the last post that JMR and I finally bought a tree (in fact, right off the display shelf since it was the only one left that we liked), and I am happy to say that it’s finally decorated. Granted, mostly with cheesy generic red, green and silver balls, but I think it still looks nice. The final ornament I ordered for this year (memories from 2015) arrived, which does add a more personal touch to the tree:
No, I won’t get an ‘Our x Married Christmas’ every year, just this year 🙂
I also ordered one for our wedding:
My mom would always get an ornament for our family tree to remember our family trip each year, so I ordered this one after our Honeymoon in February:
The fact that Jimmy cannot swim and I choose a snorkeling excursion was not the greatest idea, so the ornament for that trip had to be a memory of that horrific day trip. We look back at it now and laugh.
So, the Christmas decorating is finally finished! I think this weekend I will start attempting some baking as gifts for family and friends. (Although, the gift part might not happen if they’re a complete non-tasty failure).
Well, those are the only updates I have for now! Happy Thursday…the weekend is almost here!
Running in the Moment 
