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.

My Road to Challenge: Training Week 11 of 40

	This week (Jan 27 – Feb 2)	Cumulative
Total training hours	14:32	154:36
Swim	00:50 / 1.85 km	21:07 / 36.75 km
Bike	04:55 (trainer time)	28:30 (spin class + trainer time)
Run	04:32 / 44.72 km	42:56 / 452.88 km
Strength training	02:15	28:38
Yoga	2:00	28:15

Week 11. On-call. Lower numbers than I’d like but that’s a reality of on-call weeks I think. I've been playing around with how best to manage training when on-call. There are a few things I did right and a few things I’ll change next time. What I got right: a yoga class on the Monday night; my “long” run of the week early Tuesday morning; a lunchtime swim on Friday.  What I’d do differently: make sure I got a swim in on Monday; play with my schedule so that I’d do the following week’s spins during on-call week so that I could swap swims & spins from a scheduling perspective; and my back was all flared up by week’s end so even though I’m opting (mostly) not to go to yoga with my Blackberry while on-call, I could be doing some yoga at home to keep everything in good working order.

Not related to on-call, Monday I opted to sleep in instead of doing one of my planned strength workouts, pushing it to the weekend. Unfortunately, by the time the weekend arrived, I was having disk issues and weights were ill advised. I opted for TRX instead – less chance of getting injured. But this was a good reminder not to postpone workouts, because I don’t know what’s waiting for me later in the week.

Here is week 11:

Monday	Power Yoga Class 6 km run
Tuesday	12 km run 1:40 spin on the trainer
Wednesday	15 minute warm up spin on the trainer 45 minute weight workout 1:40 spin on the trainer
Thursday Rest Day
Friday	5.2 km run Weight workout with my trainer (1 hr) 1850m swim
Saturday	Brick: 1:20 spin on the trainer + 10 minute run on the treadmill (1.6 km) 11.2 km run
Sunday	8.8 km run (intervals!) Hatha Yoga Class TRX Total Body Workout TRX pikes – 30

I spent a lot of time on the trainer this week and in the process have become completely hooked on Breaking Bad. It’s been turning my 1:30 spin sessions into 1:40 spin sessions because that’s how long it takes to watch 2 episodes. Ha!

I remain frustrated in my attempts to drop some weight. Despite training as much as I am and restricting calories to an average of 1100-1200 a day, I’m holding steady. So in an attempt to change things up a bit, I’m trying the Thrive Forward 7-Day Nutrient Dense Menu Plan. Really, I am not expecting to drop any weight with this. I do expect that it will make me feel good and be a little more even tempered (read “less bitchy”). But my trainer has been nagging me to eat more, arguing I can’t lose anything because I’m not eating enough. Riiiight... I enjoy proving him wrong and I expect after a week, I will have gained 5 lbs and my husband will have dropped 10. As a side note: don’t expect the even temper to continue after that!!

I will say that 2-days into this, the food is delicious! Have changed up the order of the days a bit so Day 1, then Day 5. I've missed a snack on each day just because I haven’t had time but wow, these recipes have all been winners.  Broccoli Slaw Salad (made with pear, not apple due to allergies), Tart Cherry Balls, Mango Lime & Hot Pepper Smoothie, Sweet Potato Ginger Soup, No Bake Chocolate Pie… just some of the favourites so far. Shopping for all these obscure ingredients and figuring out how to prepare everything, not to mention washing (and rewashing and rewashing) my blender is a bit tedious. Let’s see how manageable this is through the work week.

On to week 12... and in another 36 hours or so... training freedom (... that's right, off-call!).