|
|
Week 35 (July
14 – July 20)
|
Cumulative
|
|
Total
training hours
|
20:48
|
506:35
|
|
Swim
|
04:04 / 9.2234
km
|
101:07 / 210.9393
km
|
|
Bike
|
10:33 / 261.7
km
|
179:04
(spin class + trainer time + 2477.4 km)
|
|
Run
|
05:51 / 54.8
km
|
129:28 / 1290.86
km
|
|
Strength
training
|
00:20
|
40:08
|
|
Yoga
|
|
52:25
|
Week 35 was my biggest swim-bike-run week yet. I was excited to see my assignment for the
week… and a little overwhelmed. It turned out to be a challenging week for it.
The two days with morning and evening workouts were both days that I had to
work downtown, which meant long commutes. And both were days with late
meetings.
On Tuesday, I opted to get it all done before returning
home. Up at 4, I left the house at 5, ready to hit the lake at 5:30 am. And I
had a terrible, terrible swim. After the heat wave we had, Sasamat was much too
warm for a wet suit swim… a 3 km wet suit swim. I felt like I was poaching
myself and like I had wasted a workout when there are precious few remaining
before race day. After my swim, I drove in to the city, spent nine and a half
hours in the office and then changed into my run gear, planning to run…
somewhere… before heading home, finally deciding to run at Burnaby Lake. I’d
never run there before but the distance seemed about right for what I had to
do. OMG. What a gong show. I was completely
disoriented, got lost, was trying to maintain pace on some zone 3 intervals while still stopping to read signs to find my way out. I realized I didn’t run around the lake, just up and down one side of it, and when I got
home and looked at the Garmin data, I was surprised to see I was running on the
opposite side of the lake that I thought I was on. You might ask how that’s
possible but let me tell you, you can’t even see the lake from that trail – not at this time of year anyway – or
at least, not on the side I was running on!
Fortunately, I’d taken Wednesday off to celebrate my baby
girl’s 15th birthday (15!) so could sleep in, get my training done
in the morning and then hang out with her the rest of the day. Here we are
enjoying post-hill-repeat-followed-by-brick-run popsicles.
So you would think with that mid-week day off, Thursday
would see me well rested for am/pm workouts but no… In bed by 10, but pulled
from it not too much later by the sound of someone driving into a parked car on
the street… Suspicions of impairment… waiting around for police to arrive… a
second parked car driven in to… well. It was a long while before I made it back
to bed. So my Thursday pool workout came after just 3 hrs and 45 minutes of
sleep. I told myself this was all good preparation for race day. I won’t sleep
then either. Get up with a swim I’d rather not do. Work hard all day and then
finish with a run. And that’s how the day went. My end of day run though:
bliss. I do feel like I’m getting
slightly addicted to the 9 pm dinner standard: Vega Sport protein powder
(chocolate), almond milk, a frozen banana, and frozen mixed berries. Blended
thick and eaten with a spoon.
Friday night the weather turned and having been spoiled with
lots of hot, dry rides… the weekend everything changed. Sunday was my biggest
ride ever… as in EVER. I had 6 hours to log and there was no way I was spending
them on the trainer… seriously, I did 4 hrs in one spell a couple of months ago
and swore that I’d never do it again. I
looked to where the sky seemed lightest and rode in that direction. It started
out not bad… then started to rain a bit. Then rained harder. I was making my way to the Tsawassen Ferry
Terminal and at times it rained so hard, I could barely see. My socks were
soaked. My feet like ice cubes. And my new wind breaker… not a rain coat. LOL.
I’m still trying to master the nutrition and had set my Garmin to chirp every
10 minutes as a prompt to drink. Unfortunately, I often couldn’t hear it over
the wind, rain and roar of truck traffic on the SFPR. It took me 2 hrs and 23
minutes to get to Tsawassen, I was soaking wet, I’d made it through only one
bottle of carbo-pro. I was starving and I needed a bathroom. With no one to
watch my bike and no lock though, there was no relief for me. I sucked back a
gel and returned in the direction I’d come. I knew that there was a Husky
station on River Rd that we’d stopped at before when out riding SFPR. It was
pretty quiet so I figured they’d let me bring my bike in and I could have a pit
stop and buy some emergency energy - because there was NO WAY I was downing any
more liquids until I found a bathroom. So I made my way to the Husky station
and it was pretty quiet alright. Too quiet as it turned out...
I nearly wept. Apologizing profusely to my bladder, I started making my way back along River Rd,
looking for options for an emergency break. Everywhere that seemed like it might be a
reasonable stop had a sign warning “this area protected by video surveillance”.
Not wanting to be the next viral Youtube video, I kept going. A Chevron on
Scott Road was my relief but I didn’t hit it until the 4 hr mark in my ride. No
fluids. No fuel from 2:23 to 4 hrs. Soaking wet. It wasn’t my happiest ride.
Emergency Mars bar. Check! The rest of the ride was pleasant (funny what some
calories can do when they aren’t being evil) and it even stopped raining. By
the time I started my run, it was dry and a little bit muggy.
I’m pretty proud to have made it through this training week,
logging a few firsts/milestones: highest SBR volumes, biggest single ride ever, and I
fell asleep while having my hair blow dried at the hair salon Saturday
afternoon (you know you're tired when...). 5 weeks to go.
Week 35 looked like this:
|
Monday
|
6.7 km run
20 minute TRX workout (Core + 5
minutes of squats)
|
|
Tuesday
|
3 km lake swim
12 km run
|
|
Wednesday
|
Brick: 41 km ride including 4 x
hill repeats (SFU) followed by 5.1 km run
|
|
Thursday
|
2800m pool swim
18 km run
|
|
Friday
|
3.4 km lake swim
|
|
Saturday
|
Brick: 67 km ride followed by 6.7
km run
|
|
Sunday
|
Brick: 153 km ride followed by 6.4
km run
|
