Ironman Canada - 28 weeks out

Guess what time it is kids? It’s time to start sharing the deets of the IMC journey… Why? Because I want to. And because if I share every workout on my Facebook timeline, everyone will hide me from their news feed. I know I would.

So this time instead of keeping a running total of the training hours from week to week, I’m going to compare how the IMC prep looked compared to the same week pre-Challenge. For two reasons… one, it will be interesting to see how they differ, and two, and more importantly, I just don’t want to have to do all that math. So without further ado my lovies, here is how things looked 28 weeks out from race day:

	IMC: 28 weeks to go (January 12-18)	Challenge: 28 weeks to go (Feb 3-9)
Total training hours	13:47	12:34
Swim	2:04 / 3900m	3:57 / 8150m
Bike	1:56 (14.2 km on the trainer + spin class)	5:20 (trainer time + spin class)
Run	5:56 / 58.3 km	1:01 / 9.7 km
Strength training	2:36
Yoga	1:15	2:15

Not a huge difference in the total training load but a big shift in the distribution of time. Even as I was typing out the summaries, I realized that they are likely going to look very different this far out, given different run race schedules, and the fact that this time pre-Challenge, I was still coaching myself.

This is how the week looked:

Monday	8.3 km run at lunch Strength circuit at home after work
Tuesday	Track work: 6 x 800m (200 @ 70%, 200 @ 80%, 200 @ 90%, 200 max) TRX crunches to failure
Wednesday	2100m swim before work PRM Spin Class TRX push-ups & squats
Thursday	11 km run at lunch including 20 minutes in zone 3 Plyo circuit at home after work Yin Yoga Class
Friday	“Bench Press for Cyclists” x 12 – trainer workout TRX back-row & squats
Saturday	1800m PRM swim 8 km PRM run post-swim Strength circuit at home
Sunday	21 km run

Per my last post, I am also most definitely putting down some roots in Crazytown. Creating big calorie deficits to try and look like I belong at the pool or in Spin class but not reaping benefits as yet. I started reading Racing Weight yesterday (on loan from my coach). I’m a little frustrated by what I’ve read so far which suggests no focus on calories at all. The central premise seems to be if you eat optimally for training, then your training will get you lean. And the guidelines for optimal eating for training are about timing, diet quality, and nutrient requirements – but not calories. It’s a one-size-fits-all approach and that makes me nervous. The book also encourages tracking of data – you gotta know I’m on-board with that one – including weight, body fat percentage, and performance on specific workouts. The idea being this allows you to functionally assess your ideal race weight. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with this yet… it means more food (oh, sooo much more food), and that would suggest more Karin. So the jury is still out. Out of curiosity, I compared my weight at the start of this training week to my weight at the same point pre-Challenge, and I’m 2 pounds lighter this year. Meh. I’m going to express that in ounces because it sounds way more impressive… 32 ounces smaller. Woo! I didn’t have the fancy-schmancy Tanita scale then though so I can’t compare body fat percentages… likely an inaccurate reading, yes, but useful for tracking changes.

So where do I go from here? I don’t know yet.