Myrtle Beach Half Recap

There is something about taper week that just makes my body shut down.

Last year, a mere day before the Myrtle Beach Marathon, I woke up feeling tired, icky, and run down. Luckily, I was able to go home early and rest before we left, and rest in the car, and by the evening I felt better. I PR’ed the marathon distance the next day.

Not to be outdone, I woke up the Tuesday before the half feeling tired, icky, and congested.  Wednesday I felt slightly better, but had no voice. Thursday I felt better than Wednesday. By Friday, the day I hoped and expected to feel even better,  I battled a cough and felt tired and icky again. I took meds all week and rested as much as possible. No cancelations Friday so I couldn’t go home early, and to make matters worse, Bryan had taken a pain pill (he is still dealing with shoulder surgery recovery) and couldn’t drive. So, no resting in the car.

About 2:00 Friday afternoon I began mentally preparing myself to not “race” this race. I knew that as long as I didn’t wake up feeling worse the next morning I’d be able to run it but a PR was out of the question. I tried to focus on the fact that I was not injured (as two of my friends were) or so sick I couldn’t run at all (as another friend was), but of course I was still bummed.

I got home from work around 4 and Bryan and  I left around 4:30. My parents had agreed to take the kids for THE WHOLE WEEKEND, so I figured even if my run didn’t go as  planned, we still had that. It was a pretty uneventful ride out. We stopped at my favorite place ever for dinner (Chick-Fil-A) and arrived at packet pick up at around 7:15. Bryan waited in the car so I didn’t get the traditional pic holding my bib (though I guess I could have asked someone to do it for me) but I did get a couple fun items at the expo.

 

We got to the hotel around 8:30 and the rest of the evening was spent prepping (including meds) and resting.

That night, like every night before a race, I slept like crap. I swear I woke up every 30 minutes. More importantly though, I woke up feeling better! I got dressed, drank some coffee and hitched a ride to the start with a fellow speed work friend (Bronwen), looking to PR her marathon time.  Race morning was CHILLY (yes!) and we arrived at the start around 6am. We stood outside freezing for a few minutes while I ate my Clif bar and then we did a quick and easy warm up. I tried to get in touch with the rest of the group to meet them at the start, but never could find them, so I took a solo start photo.

We had quite big group racing this weekend, each with his/her own goals. John was aiming to BQ, Bronwen to finish in 3:30, Melissa to run the half in under 1:33 (sheesh). Amy had originally planned to aim for a 1:35 PR as well, but was sadly out due to injury. My goals were as follows:

Stretch goal: 1:42:30 (7:49 average – I liked the even finishing number)

A goal: 1:42:36 (7:50 average)

B goal: sub 1:44:48 (anything under 8:00 average)

C goal: finish and don’t die (always a good goal)

At 6:30 the gun went off and the race began.

Miles 1-3 (7:49, 7:49, 7:50)

I felt great the first mile, but typically do during the first mile of any run or race, until my heart rate catches up with me if I happen to be going too quickly. I actually got stuck behind some slower runners despite starting pretty close to the line, so started out at about an 8:30 and had to catch up. I saw Melissa ahead of me doing some of her own runner dodging, but kept myself from calling her because 1. it would be distracting and 2. I knew if I was going to do this I needed all my energy. She quickly disappeared from sight.Thankfully I completed mile 1 and still felt great into mile 2 and 3. I actually had to make myself slow down. I did stop for some gatorade at mile 2.

Miles 4-6 (7:52, 7:51, 7:55)

Slightly slower these three miles but this was partly due to the water stop at mile 4, and the part where I took my ear warmer off and dropped my sunglasses. I had to run backwards to get them, so I was pretty impressed that my 4th mile wasn’t slower between the two stops. Somewhere into mile 6 I started to feel a little wheezy ( I took one puff before the race which is usually enough but when I’m congested I need it more often) so I also lost time there at the water stop digging for my inhaler and my preventative ibproufen (that I only use during races to fend off soreness).

Miles 7-9 (7:41, 7:43, 7:52)

I pulled my headphones out for the second half of the race but was happy to realize I hadn’t really struggled without them. It gave me a boost of energy and  a couple faster miles, and I felt surprisingly strong. I saw John briefly, as he passed me. Mile 8 even included a water stop. Somewhere between 8 and 9 I passed Melissa, so I knew something was wrong, but I knew talking would wind me so I squeezed her shoulder as I went by. Mile 9 we made our way onto Ocean Blvd, and here is where I began to feel the wind. And actually, it wasn’t the wind that was so bad, but this pathetically slight but gradual incline through most of mile 9.

Miles 10-13.1 (7:50, 7:52, 7:53, 7:45, 7:02 last .1)

Y’all. That stupid wind and pathetic incline KILLED ME here. My paces weren’t far off my overall goal but considering where I was at mile 7 and 8 I could feel the difference. The last 3 miles took so much more effort. I thought I’d get a reprieve when we turned off Ocean Blvd but I was immediately greeted with a more legit hill. FFS. I skipped the last two water stops because I was nearing the point of feeling like stopping would just make it that much harder to get going again. I felt seriously ridiculous that the tiny inclines affected me that much, but all things considered, I was still very close to goal pace. The final mile was nothing but grit and determination. Seriously.

I crossed the finish clock almost exactly at 1:42:36, BUT, my official time was 1:42:17!!

After finishing I collected my medal and tried not to puke. Then I found Amy, who had graciously come along as the Pit Crew even though she was injured. We chatted for awhile while following the rest of the group, mostly waiting for Melissa. Once we had confirmation she made it across we set out looking for her, and luckily she was well taken care of thanks to Wise Man and his wife. She had also been sick the week before, and thought she was feeling better but her body revolted. I hitched a ride back to my hotel with Amy (thanks Amy!), where I rested until mid afternoon, enjoying the nice beach view from the window. I asked Bryan to take a picture of me with medal and he tried to get all creative, telling me to sit on the ledge and look out the window. This picture is literally catching me asking him “why?!”, but turned out really cute.

We spent the rest of the day walking around Broadway on the Beach, stopping in almost all the restaurants, deciding we didn’t want to eat there, and ended up at Applebees of all places.

After all the crazy maybe illness/maybe allergies drama, I’m convinced this race ended up such a success because of all the rest I was forced to take. I ran less than 8 miles and swam once the whole week before, taking 3 full rest days. So I now have this documented so I can remind myself next time: MORE REST! REST REST REST!

Final Results

Chip Time: 1:42:17

Overall: 177/2511

Gender: 46/1509

Age: 12/167

2016 Recap

 A recap of 2016. (Click the links to see a recap of 2011,  2012 , 2013, 2014 and 2015 )

2016 was actually a great, busy and productive year for me. Honestly, I’m looking forward to slowing down a bit in 2017.

1. What did you do in 2016 that you’d never done before?

• Finished an Ironman distance triathlon
• Received an ACE award from my professional organization (after you earn 70 hours of continuing education over a consecutive 3 year period)
• Won an age group award for the James Island Sprint Triathlon Series
• Cleaned my house 15,000 times a day
• Heard the word “mommy” 50  million times a day

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

2016

 

• Finish a Half Ironman (bonus: this is also a bucket list item!) – Joke’s on me – I finished a full! 
• Find something to invest some money in (stock, gold whatever) – nope
• Start attending church more regularly ( or at all, really ) we did, finally!
• Run a 5k in under 22 minutes nope, though this got trumped by resolution number one
• Volunteer somewhere a few times this year bah – nope

2017

• Get more involved in church
• Run a 5k in under 22 minutes
• PR a half marathon
• Focus more on family

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?


• I’m in my 30’s, so yes

4. Did anyone close to you die?


• Thankfully, no

5. What countries did you visit?

• Still zero

6. What would you like to have in 2017 that you lacked in 2016?

• The ability to take a deep breath before I get frustrated

7. What dates from 2016 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

• January – Ran the Disney Marathon with (though I use the word with loosely) a childhood friend, and PR my marathon time

• March – Ran the Myrtle Beach Marathon and PR my marathon time again! Tammie qualifies for Boston with plenty of time to spare!

 

• March – run my first team relay, and also happened to be the first time I get (and run with) bronchitis

• May – twins turn THREE!

 

• September – South Carolina gets hit with Hurricane Matthew, which, thankfully, is much milder than originally predicted. We sat the storm out. We lost power for a few hours, but luckily sustained no other major damage.

• October -Finish Ironman North Carolina, though in a bit of a different way. The hurricane forced closure of half the bike course, turning my swim, bike, run into a swim, bike, run, bike.

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8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?


• Ironman. Definitely Ironman.

9. What was your biggest failure?

• Frustration, just too much unnecessary frustration

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

• NO! WOO HOO!

11. What was the best thing you bought?

• New king size bedroom set

12. Where did most of your money go?

• House stuff, surprisingly. We had to replace the A/C unit, re paved the patio and replaced our bedroom set.

13. What did you get really excited about?

• Hitting new PR’s and milestones in training
• Becoming CKTP certified
• Our pending vacation in January! A real, non race related one!

14. What song will always remind you of 2015?

• Rise – Katy Perry

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:


• – happier or sadder? happier!
• – thinner or fatter?  about the same
• – richer or poorer? poorer, but thats ok.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?


• Really nothing aside from maybe spend more time with family. That is my focus for 2017. There was a LOT of focus on me this year.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?


• get frustrated over unimportant stuff
• cared so much about a clean house

18. How did you spend Christmas?

• At home. We opened a few presents at home and then had another at my sisters house. We also had Christmas dinner there. Christmas was cool this year because he twins are finally old enough to understand Santa and presents.

19. What was your favorite TV program?

• This Is US
• Sister Wives (yes, still)
• Gilmore Girls!

20. What were your favorite books of the year?

 I didn’t read much this year either, but I enjoyed Jodi Picoult’s new book and am recently re-reading some of the Left Behind series

21. What was your favorite music from this year?


• Rise – Katy Perry
• The Weeknd – Starboy
• Twenty One Pilots – Heathens
• Stand By You – Rachel Platten

22. What were your favorite films of the year

I think I honestly watched ONE movie that I hadn’t already seen.

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

• I turned 34. My birthday fell on a Friday this year, so I did a 4 hour training ride and then hosted a birthday/tri party at our neighborhood pool

24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

• I don’t think anything would have brought satisfaction that I’d consider immeasurable.

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2016?

• Scrub pants, t shirts and workout clothes.

26. What kept you sane?

• Exercise!
• Getting good consistent sleep!
• Plexus

27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2016.


• You can always do more than you think you can do

I Want To Be an Ironman

A couple of weeks ago, I was on a bike trainer hating life.

To clarify – I was hating that 20 minutes of life as I was pedaling away trying to get my heart rate as high as possible. Tammie, my marathon training buddy and I tortured ourselves in the garage of a fellow triathlete  (also Tami) attempting to figure out our heart rate training zones. Now that triathlon season is starting, there has been lots of talk amongst the members of our Tri group about heart rate zone training. Many of the group are tackling the full Ironman in October, and while I wasn’t sure I was going to use it myself for the Half, I figured it would still be interesting to know.

Briefly, the plan involves doing just about all training in heart rate zone 2, or your aerobic zone (Zone 1 being the easiest and Zone 5 being close to max). This zone is supposed to be the zone where you can “hang out” the longest, an important factor when you consider many  Ironman participants take 12+ hours to finish. 

So I’m pedaling and Tammie/Tami are using what encouragement they can to help me keep the pace up, and Tami asks me if I ever thought I’d be doing something like this a couple of years ago. My ability to talk silenced by my heavy breathing, I shook my head. Although I was well versed in the meanings of the numbers 13.1 and 26.2, I barely knew what 70.3 or 140.6 even meant (70.3 is the Half Iron distance, 140.6 is the full) a couple of years ago. The concept of triathlon was still new – I thought an Ironman was downright crazy. Even as I registered for the Half a few months ago, I shook my head at the group going after the full, though this time more in awe than insanity.

I said the same thing about a marathon once.

Discussion about training plans has been circling for several weeks already. Most Ironman plans are at least 30 weeks long. 7 months. SEVEN. MONTHS. Many plans peak at somewhere between 15-18 hours of training for the week. A part time jobs’ worth of hours.  The Half distance, though certainly not a walk in the park, was something I figured would be easier for me to manage. After training for something for almost a year, I was going to take it easy before starting to follow a plan in early July.

After our test was over we sat on Tami’s porch with a beer. Tami has completed 5, yes FIVE, full Ironman’s and Tammie was interested in picking her brain on training. While she asked questions, I flipped through the book containing the plans for the full race, and before I knew it I was mentally calculating how I could complete the training hours  in the least involved plan.

My mistake was saying it out loud.

They look like innocent enough friends…

I thought on this quite a bit the next few days. Mentally planning workouts. Looking at reviews on this particular plan  (the hours compared to most are on the low end  but I’m just looking to finish and still be able to be home). Asking questions. Discussing the idea with Bryan. Working around his work, my work and the daycare schedule. That few minutes (and some not so subtle hints from the other two) started changing my entire frame of mind and suddenly what I thought was completely nuts a couple weeks before something I was not only contemplating but actively planning.

A month or so ago I set a countdown on my Garmin watch to my Half Ironman race.

Today, I made a *slight* change

It cuts off a little – you get the point

 

 

 

Olympic Distance Triathlon Training – Week 16 (The Final Week)

Taper time! Already….?

Sunday: Run 41 minutes (5 miles)/swim 35 minutes (1,400 yards). I had planned to try out another ocean swim, but with an hour drive one way and a friend who backed out I decided to stay home. Whether or not that was a good decision for race day is yet to be determined but it was COOL outside and so I was able to push the stroller at an 8:12/mile pace!

Monday: Swim 40 minutes (1700 meters). Swam 1100 meters straight (race is 1125) and then did some drills. I’m still slow but I honestly feel like my form is getting better.

Tuesday: Ride 51 minutes (16 miles). I joined the group ride and cut out early.

Wednesday: Run 24 minutes (3 miles). It was a local running store’s first Pub Run. Usually Wednesday is speed work day but as a group we decided to participate in this instead. Of course, the twins came along. It was a 3 mile run around downtown Summerville, followed by a drink. Who can say no to that?

Thursday: Swim 25 minutes (1250 yards). My official final training workout. It felt a little weird to complete, to be honest.

The final workout is complete

Friday: Rest day

Saturday: Rest day (walk with twins)

The nice thing about taper week is it freed up more time in my schedule to start taking the twins for walks again (the cooler weather helped too). The walking also helped tamper the “taper crazies” by allowing me to move without fatiguing my muscles too much.

So, for real now, training is officially over, and race day is TOMORROW.

I think I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.

Totals

Planned/(Actual)

Swim: 62 minutes/ (100 minutes)

Ride: 125 minutes/ (51 minutes)

Run: 23 minutes/ (65 minutes)

210 minutes/ (216 minutes)

Olympic Distance Triathlon Training – Week 15

Race day is one week away. I am beginning to feel this mixture of excitement and nerves.

Thanks to steroids and antibiotics, I was FINALLY able to get over that cough I had for a week and a half. Unfortunately, Bryan is still fighting it, and Miles appears to be sick too. Ugh. This happened the last time I had a big race coming up, the Myrtle Beach Marathon. There, I was able to avoid the stomach bug Miles had for the race, and promptly came down with it the day after. Here’s hoping I’ve already had my turn this time.

Sunday: ride 2 hours 8 minutes (40 miles)/run 15:30 (2 miles). One last long group ride. This ride wasn’t my strongest but it went fairly well. I ended up doing half as a group and half solo, so I could try to gauge how fast I’d be able to go on race day. Afterwards I made a last minute decision to lace up my shoes and run a couple miles, and I was really glad I did. I ran two really strong miles that were both under an 8 minute mile pace!

Monday: run 30 minutes (3.25 miles)/swim 35 minutes (1200 yards). I took Chance on the run with me – one downside of fall coming is its still dark at 6:30, and then dropped him back home and swam some laps, still working on my overall form and bilateral breathing.

Tuesday: run 40 minutes (4.6 miles)/swim 20 minutes (900 yards). I did this workout in the evening. It was humid, but it must be getting a little better weather wise because I’m starting to see an decrease in my overall average pace FINALLY! I thought the day would never come.

Wednesday: run 45 minutes (4.8 miles and a walk cool down). Speed work day! There was a middle school football scrimmage game at the track so we had to change the work out and take it to the road next to the track. This road has a hill. We did 8×600 with 1:30 rest in between. A couple friends traded off pushing the stroller for me this time, which I appreciated in particular because of this hill. My pace was kinda everywhere because of it but I had one solo segment at a 6:55 average.

Thursday: ride 50 minutes (16 miles)/swim 30 minutes (1300 yards). I had originally planned to join the group ride but had the time in the morning to do the workout solo so I did that instead so I could be home after work. Plus, I needed a scenery change ride wise.

Friday: REST DAY

Saturday: run 45 minutes (5.5 miles). I was finally able to exchange the birthday shoes I got (they were giving me a blister 😦 ) and decided to try a pair of Mizuno’s, which I got to take on a test run. Good news – no blisters, and a 8:17/mile average! Double win!

Totals

Planned/(Actual)

Swim: 109 minutes/ (81 minutes)

Ride: 158 minutes/ (180 minutes)

Run: 180 minutes/ (175 minutes)

The final week is taper week. In my opinion, for all intents and purposes, my training is over – this last week coming up is mostly maintenance.

The big day is soon!

Olympic Distance Triathlon Training – Week 14

This week was supposed to be my peak training week, but instead I’m renaming it fail week.

Sunday – unplanned rest day. I woke up at 3am with a stomachache that hung around all day. I never actually got sick but I sure didn’t feel well. I did watch quite a few episodes of Parenthood, so there’s that.

Monday – ride 30 minutes. I actually still felt cruddy and ended up taking the day off. By the end of the day I had started to feel like myself again so I did an easy trainer ride for a half hour. I watched a lot more Parenthood.

Tuesday – run 49 minutes (5.8 miles)/ride 80 minutes (24 miles). I got up and took chance for a run in the morning (hamstring felt ok yay!) and then joined the group ride in the evening. I’m trying to gauge how fast I’m going to be able to go solo on race day so tried not to draft for most of the ride. Man, drafting is so much easier. I’m coughing but I figure its just an allergy flare up.

Wednesday – swim 35 minutes (1250 yards) run 43 minutes (4.8 miles). Speed work day! Today’s run was 3 sets of 4×400 with 1 minute rest between each 400 and 3 minutes between each set. I managed a 7:30-7:50 average pushing the stroller and I was more than happy with that, but my hamstring started acting up towards the end (ugh). Still coughing.

my kids aren’t headless this week!

Thursday yoga 60 minutes/swim 38 minutes (1400yards). By this point the sinuses and coughing I’d been fighting all week has started to feel worse. Coughing all week and an upset hamstring made me think I should try to get some yoga in even though it’s not part of my swim/bike/run plan. Oh man I could tell I hadn’t done yoga in awhile. The evening was a big one : my first ocean swim. I wanted to get some pictures but didn’t want my phone stolen and left it in the car. Luckily, the guy I swam with was super patient as ocean swimming so SO MUCH different – especially because the water was pretty choppy and had pretty consistent rolling waves. At some points I felt like I was trying to swim in a bounce castle. I gulped a few mouthfuls of salt water (ugh) and stopped to tread water a few times the first half while I was trying to get my bearings, not lose the other swimmer and make sure I wasn’t going too far offshore. The second half went more smoothly but overall it was still SLOW. Luckily, I’ve been told  that the likelihood of Kiawah being that choppy is slim, so here’s hoping it’ll be a little easier. Still, I think I’m going to have to lower my swim time expectation a little. BUT I’M ALIVE!

Friday: swim 35 minutes (1250 yards). Still trying to figure out this whole bilateral breathing thing. Still sucking at it. Still coughing.

Saturday: yoga 35 minutes. By the time we put the twins to bed Friday I had a low grade fever. After hacking and coughing for a week (worse at night than the day luckily)  that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I had hoped to fit a long run in but I spent the morning at Doctors Care instead. A steroid shot and some scripts later, here’s hoping I’m finally back on the path to health. I did some easy yoga for runners to try to work on the tight muscles from all the coughing.

Totals

Planned/(Actual)

Swim: 128 minutes/(108 minutes)

Ride: 248 minutes/(110 minutes)

Run: 180 minutes/(95 minutes)

+ 95 minutes yoga

556 minutes/(408 minutes)

And I survived an ocean swim!!!

Running with Twins: A Survival Guide

10 tips for your next run with twins.

Tip #1: Pack Snacks

Don’t be stingy either. Pack more snacks than you think you’d ever need. When I take them to speed work, I take an entire (albeit small) cooler. Don’t just pack what they’ve liked for the last week because when you’re on mile 3 is when they’ll decide that they no longer accept crackers. Case in point, both Miles and Abby love dum dum suckers (aka P Pops), but I gave them one last night and Miles, who is always the one that is SUPER excited, randomly declares “all done p pop”. Of course. You might also want to try to pack things you’d find mentally acceptable for an entire meal, because that’s generally what it becomes. Let’s not talk about the time dinner was an entire roll of Ritz crackers….not that last night was much better (veggie straws, almonds and squeeze applesauce).

Tip #2: Run a Little Faster

Built in intervals. When a toddler starts to whine, just push faster! This will usually elicit a “weeeee!” Sometimes it works to just stop for a sec until they whine and then go again, because moving is faster than not moving.

Tip #3: Fast Reflexes

Drinks are great to occupy toddlers, but I’ve found that when they are done with them, they were done, like, yesterday. So figure out how to maneuver to the side, WHILE RUNNING, and grab said cup before the sixth chorus of “all done” and the cup is released to the ground. Not a huge deal if you’re running solo and wanted a break anyway. A bigger deal if you’re running in a group, someone trips over said cup and you’re banned from then forward.

Tip #4: Steering

This one is more for group runs, but make sure you know how to steer the stroller, and don’t get lazy about it. Friends don’t like it when you clip their heels or nearly run them off the track. (Sorry Lisa!)

Tip #5: Prepare for Pictures

Aka: make sure the visors are up for group pictures so your toddlers don’t look headless.

My kids are headless

Tip #6: Music

Really you should just have music with or without toddlers, but it is pretty entertaining to hear “Abby! Dance!” and watch feet bob up and down.

Tip #7: Be Prepared to Quit Early, or Endure the Wrath

Always always go into a stroller run with the mindset that you might not get to finish what you set out to finish. I’ve been lucky,  particularly with speed work that they start to melt down right around the time we are finishing up, but I’ve had runs where total meltdowns happened. Usually then I’m at a point where its closer for me to finish the run than it is to turn around, so I just get to listen to screaming with my music and pretend we are at a rock concert or something. WOOOOOOOOO!!

Tip #8: Shoes

Not your toes – the toddlers shoes. Make sure they aren’t easy to take off. See “fast reflexes”

Tip #9: Avoid Hills

Seriously, just don’t do it. Weight of toddlers + weight of stroller + hill? No.

Tip #10: Smile

Because people will stare at you like you’re nuts. It’s ok though, because you can probably outrun them. 🙂

SMILE?!? Give us snacks!

Olympic Distance Triathlon Training – Week 13

Just one more heavier week and then things start to relax a bit. Except with this tropical storm there is an 80% chance of rain, and therefore super boring indoor workouts, for the next 4 days. Ugh. This is a really bad time to have hamstring issues.

Sunday: Run 122 minutes (12 miles). I decided to do a long run instead of the usual long ride. It was humid, and my left hamstring started to tighten up around mile 9, causing me to stop and stretch a few times after that. I think I maybe added too many miles onto my current longest run, but thought I’d be ok if I took it slow. Maybe not.

My sweat rag was soaked by mile 3 and I was ringing it out by mile 10

Monday: Trainer ride 40 minutes  and 41 minute swim (1700 meters). I don’t trust drivers and school traffic so I read a book while I rode. For the swim I did 1200 meters at what I’d consider a comfortable pace to see how long it would take me (the race swim is 1126 meters), and finished in 28 minutes and some change. I worked on my bilateral breathing after that.

Tuesday: Hamstring is still tight so got up so swam 23 minutes (900 yards) and then joined the group ride which lasted 85 minutes (25 miles). Skipped the run.

Wednesday: Usually speed work day but skipped it because I didn’t want to risk injuring my hamstring. Swam 33 minutes (1250 yards) in the morning and rode on the trainer for 40 minutes after work, but the twins and I still crashed the after party 🙂

Thursday: Group ride 70 minutes (23 miles). Joined the group doing the trail this time and tried to stay out front or alone as much as I could to judge how well I could do. You’re not allowed to draft on race day and group rides usually involve quite a bit of drafting.

Friday: REST DAY! Bryan and I spend a night downtown for our anniversary (celebrating a bit early  because the weekend of our actual anniversary is pretty busy) and have dinner at California Dreaming, where he proposed to me 5 years ago 🙂

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Saturday: Run 42 minutes (4.5 miles). Ugh. Hamstring still doesn’t feel right. I stopped every mile to judge how it was doing and ultimately cut it a bit short (was shooting for 50-55 minutes), iced and KT taped it when I got back. I have been stretching all week and this is just getting frustrating. It isn’t causing a lot of pain, it kind of….aches? But the last thing I need is a torn hamstring causing me to have to drop out of this race, so I’m trying not to overdo it. I did get some nice pictures to share with my IRun4 buddy though.

Totals

Planned/(Actual)

Swim: 130/(97)

Bike: 226/(235)

Run: 150/(164)

Total: 508/(496)

Olympic Distance Triathlon Training – Week 12

Yikes only 4 weeks to go. And I figured that if I’m going to do this I should probably actually register for it, so I did that too. Ha.

It was also a cutback week. THANK GOODNESS. For whatever reason, I start to feel burnt out with training around this time and for whatever reason start to question whether I can really do what it is I’m training for. I needed the mental AND physical break this week.

Sunday: Ride 94 minutes (30 miles). Not much to say about this one. Pretty straight forward 🙂

Monday: Swim 38 minutes (1600 meters). I attempted a speed work type swim and it was pretty much an epic fail. My goal was to beat my fastest 50m (55 seconds) by 2-3 seconds and then swim 100 in 2:05 and 2:10 with short rests in between. Repeat 3x. Well, my first attempt at 50 meters was actually 58 seconds, and my 100’s were 2:10 and 2:15. Fail. I did a 200 meter “warm down” and then attempted it again but it was worse. This time my 50m was over a minute and my 100 was 2:15 and 2:12. I decided to skip the last set, take it easy, and attempt it again another day. On the plus side, my speeds were at least faster than “comfortable” (about 2:30/100m) so I was technically doing speed work.

Tuesday:  REST DAY! We had a pre-birthday birthday dinner.

The tiny human demands cake

Wednesday: swim 34 minutes (1400 yards) and run 42 minutes (4.75 miles). I attempted a bilateral breathing drill workout. It was harder than it looked.

Don’t try this at home….try it at a pool 😉

I took the day off Wednesday for my birthday and had kind of a self pampering day. Massage, pedicure, lunch with Bryan. He told me to go buy myself something nice, so I bought new running shoes. 🙂 I had planned to take the twins to speed work with me but it looked like rain so my parents picked them up. The solo run was nice, admittedly. This weeks’ workout was 6×800 at 5k pace. I shot for a little faster than 5k and did so on 5/6 of the sets.

The “Virginia-fie”

Thursday: Ride 50 minutes (spin class). I needed a break from the usual. It was a nice break.

Friday: REST DAY

Saturday: Run 20 minutes (2.3 miles) and swim 25 minutes (1150 yards). I attempted a swim with a wetsuit in case I decide to go for one in the ocean. It was…interesting. Not too constricting and definitely made me faster, but just felt warm in the already overly warm water.

Totals:

Planned/(Actual)

Swim: 101 minutes/ (101 minutes)

Ride: 136 minutes/ (136 minutes)

Run: 67 minutes/ (67 minutes)

Next Week is going to be a rough one as it’s another 8 hour training week. How do people training for half and full ironman’s do it??