My Road to Challenge: Training Week 5 of 40

	This week	Cumulative
Total training hours	10:05	61:24
Swim	01:40 / 3.2 km	06:22 / 12.35 km
Bike	02:06 (spin class + trainer time)	07:52 (spin class + trainer time)
Run	03:56 / 35.7 km	20:02 / 186 km
Strength training	02:22	13:07
Yoga	None!	14:00

Week 5 ended up being a bit of a fall back week for me. I missed one run - because I just didn’t make it a priority to fit it in. If I’m being perfectly honest, it was also because it was some speedwork and I’ve not had much success with that lately. I kept putting it off, putting it off, putting it off through the week and then the next thing you know, we had a big dump of snow and so I was faced with doing it in the snow on Friday or the slush on Saturday or Sunday or – God Forbid – the treadmill. I opted to just let it go. The other reason my training time dipped is because I didn’t make it in to yoga at all. Not so much due to my scheduling challenges but because the holiday scheduling at my yoga studio resulted in a lot of cancellations – and it seemed that all the classes I attend regularly were off the roster. L

I’m not feeling so bad about it. One missed run in the big picture isn’t going to change my Challenge experience. And the lower overall volume this week has taught me a couple of things:

1. I need to add a bit more structure to my scheduling. What I mean by that is making certain days always “the days” for those activities. I haven’t. Instead I have let my schedule be pretty fluid, and considered days that I’m not working as good opportunities to catch up / load up on workouts. The problem with that is I end up doing triples & quads at the end of the week, which leaves me exhausted and dreading my workouts. So some smart scheduling is on my list of things to tackle heading into 2014.
2. Yoga. My body needs it. My back has been finicky for the last few days and then after this morning’s class, I felt so much better. My back was happier. My cranky left shoulder was a little happier, my hips were happier, my hamstrings looser. I’ve thought of my yoga workouts as bonuses vs integral to my training.  Might be time to rethink that.

And something weird happened this week: I started to enjoy the swim. I know. It’s crazy. I can’t explain it.

Here’s week 5:

Monday Rest Day!	Not. A. Damn. Thing.
Tuesday	5.2 km run 45 minute weight workout at home
Wednesday	Tri-Club Spin Class
Thursday	5.2 km run
Friday	8.3 km run in the fresh snow 1 hour weight workout with my trainer
Saturday	1600m swim
Sunday	15 minute warm-up spin on the trainer 37 minute weight workout at home 1600m swim 17 km run in the slush & rain with a post-run latte with hubby as my reward! 51 minute spin on the trainer

My Road to Challenge: Training Week 4 of 40

	This week	Cumulative
Total training hours	13:42	51:19
Swim	01:44 / 3.15 km	04:42 / 9.15 km
Bike	01:57 (spin class + trainer time)	05:46 (spin class + trainer time)
Run	04:31 / 40.6 km	16:06 / 150.3 km
Strength training	02:30	10:45
Yoga	03:00	14:00

Fear not, tiny little blog following. The absence of a training week 4 post, at the end of training week 4 is not reflecting that I’ve stopped training. Au contraire, training week 4 was my biggest week yet. It’s just that training plus work plus Christmas preparations and socials have kept me from blathering on about it… Until now!

I did tap out of the Daily Challenge for December. My knees & shoulders couldn’t take the Crossfit Style Burpees – and since I do a lot of other stuff and don’t want to jeapordize my tri-disciplines by blowing out my knees/shoulder with this little challenge, I bailed.  But that aside, without further ado, here’s week 4:

Monday	8.6 km run (hill repeats in the snow)
Tuesday Rest Day!	8 minutes of planking After work Christmas Cheer!
Wednesday	15 minute warm-up spin on trainer 45 minute weight workout at home 8 minutes of planking Tri-Club Spin Class
Thursday	8.3 km run Yoga Double Header:            Hatha/Core Flow Class            Hatha Class
Friday	4.5 km run 1 hour weight workout with my trainer
Saturday	5.2 km run 1600m swim 45 minute weight workout at home 42 minute spin on the trainer
Sunday	1550m swim 14.1 km run Yin/Deep Stretch Yoga Class

My yoga studio has added a new class late morning on Sundays and so I timed my Sunday long run to end at the studio in time to take the Yin/Deep Stretch class. When the instructor asked if we wanted to focus on anything in particular, I was quick to suggest hips. It was a fabulous way to end a long run and something I intend to make a habit.

My Road to Challenge: Training Week 3 of 40

	This week	Cumulative
Total training hours*	12:24	37:37
Swim	1:35 / 3 km	02:58 / 6 km
Bike	01:34 (spinning on the trainer)	03:49 (spin class + trainer time)
Run	04:00 / 38.5 km	11:35 / 109.7 km
Strength training	02:15	08:15
Yoga	03:00	11:00

* Not including Daily Challenge reps

Week 3 is in the books. And this week brought some challenges: being on-call, angry knees, and a sudden cold snap. 

Being on-call was not a surprise – I knew I would be on-call this week. And I will be on-call again in the lead up to Challenge. It does make some things more difficult though: long runs/rides require repeats of a short route so I’m close to home if I get a call that requires that. Swims require a volunteer to stand poolside with my phone, ready to flag me down if it rings. Yoga classes require the understanding of my fellow yogis should my phone ring. That last  one is something I haven’t been willing to risk until this week and I’m so glad I did! I managed three classes including one, with my favourite instructor, where I was the only attendee and got a personal session focused on opening up the hips (my choice). All three classes were uninterrupted. I had asked a colleague to cover my Friday night call so that I could attend a Christmas party and as a result had a reprieve from the pager until 8 am Saturday. It seemed foolish to not take advantage of this with my training schedule. Saturday morning, I crawled out of my warm bed at 4:45, bundled up for the freezing cold and drove out to the pool. Parked and did a 13 km out-and-back, then followed it with 1500m in the pool. All timed so that by 8 am, I was out of the water, phone in hand. And this morning, I paid my daughter $5 to sit poolside with my phone. “I’ll be in the supportive mom chairs.” she said as she headed over with her book. She’s so funny. She makes me smile. We followed the swim with a family breakfast at one of our favourite restaurants. Instead of an on-call swim being a drag, it became a bit of a gift.

Creativity and flexibility helped me navigate on-call challenges, and this same mindset helped me with my physical challenge as well: my angry, painful knees. Now, my knees have long been an issue. And I manage them as best I can: I wear patellar straps when I run, I Tylenol on long-runs, I strengthen my quads, and when I do hill repeats, I walk the downhill… Well my knees have been grumpier than usual since the last half marathon. And they’ve just been getting angrier. My run mileage isn’t excessive so have to wonder, what’s going on here? I was doing the burpees for the Daily Challenges, missed a day, and then had 200 to do to make-up. That didn’t help. The day after that, I could only manage 50. Barely. I hated my Tabata work-out with bench jumps, skipping, jump squats. Every time I landed I cringed. My reps within the 20-second “on” periods were lower than ever. This wasn’t working. Flexibility & creativity though, right? I e-mailed my amazing personal trainer, whined about my knees, and asked if we could drop the Tabata workouts and just stick to weight workouts – and with no cardio in the circuit since my tri-training would give me plenty of that. He agreed to come up with a new plan & some fresh workouts – ‘cause he’s awesome like that (don’t tell him I said that). For the Daily Challenge, initially I decided to drop it but today I decided, I could still do the #300aDAY, I’d just make it all planking… 5 minutes of planking. My core can certainly use it! 

Unfortunately, when it comes to dealing with the cold snap, I really just need to suck it up, get out there, and do it. I hate being cold. Hate it. Hate it. And people from Edmonton, Winnipeg, Calgary, etc. can talk about how much colder it is there than here… well that’s nice. But I live here. Because I don’t like to be cold. And while it may be colder there than here, it’s still cold here, and I hate being cold! Friday morning’s forecast was -5, feels like -12. Great. I did a short run before my workout with my trainer. It took me 10 minutes to warm-up and by the time my body was warm, my gloved fingers were frozen. My chest hurt. I could hear this weird noise …was I... wheezing?  Why couldn’t I get my breathing right? Did I mention that I hate being cold? Saturday morning, when I got up for my early run before being back on-call, it was -7, feels like -15. Thermal tights. Sport tank. Thermal jersey. Medium weight jacket. Double gloves. Fingers were fine, torso was fine, legs were cold, face was cold, breathing difficult and chest hurting from the cold air intake. Ugh. On the upside, a 13 km run in those temps immediately before a swim makes the Maple Ridge pool water feel much less Arctic! 

Later that day, I bought a mask to wear over my face to warm my breath and stop the windburn so I don’t end up with the rosy-cheeked look of an alcoholic by Spring. I wore the mask today on my run. It was much warmer (-2, feels like -5) and although I found it annoying to wear, it definitely eliminated the breathing issues and chest pain.

Here's week 3:

Monday	5.4 km run
Tuesday	Weight workout at home 34 minute spin on the trainer Daily Challenge reps: 200 burpees, 6:40 plank
Wednesday	8.3 km run Tabata workout at home Daily Challenge reps: 50 burpees, 4:15 plank
Thursday Rest Day!	Yoga Double Header:            Hatha/Core Flow Class            Hatha Class
Friday	4.1 km run 1 hour weight workout with my trainer
Saturday	13.1 km run – Brrrr 1500m swim Hatha Yoga Class
Sunday	1500m swim 7.7 km run 1 hour spin on the trainer 5 minute plank (2 x 2:30)

On to week 4: half a week of horror (including snow) and then we return to warmer temps and some rain. Give me warmer days and rain over sub-zero temps any day!

My Road to Challenge: Training Week 2 of 40

	This week	Cumulative
Total training hours*	12:53	25:13
Swim	00:41 / 1500m	01:23 / 3 km
Bike	01:15 (spin  class + trainer time)	02:15 (spin class + trainer time)
Run	03:27 / 31.3 km	07:35 / 71.2 km
Strength training	03:00	06:00
Yoga	04:30	08:00

* Not including Daily Challenge reps

Yeah! Successfully made it through the second week of training – taking a rest day (ahhh!) and still increasing my training by half an hour over last week… more yoga, less running. My knees will thank me, even if the scale doesn’t!

This week, the training plan continued the call for unstructured workouts so my plan to keep on keeping on, with my running coach’s half marathon plan and my personal trainer’s recommended workout schedule, supplemented with a spin class and a trip to the pool. I love my Dream Team. I’m toying with the idea of hiring a tri coach, but also facing the reality of my finances and the fact that I’m a control freak. The jury is still out on this one. This is how week 2 shaped up – the gory details and the photo diary:

Monday	5 km run   Weight workout at home Daily Challenge reps
Tuesday	Tabata workout at home 7 km run (including hill repeats x 6) Daily Challenge reps
Wednesday	Hatha Yoga Class Tabata workout at home Tri-Club Spin Class Daily Challenge reps
Thursday Rest Day!	Hatha/Core Flow Yoga Class Daily Challenge reps
Friday	15 minute spin on the trainer 1 hour weight workout with my trainer Hatha Flow Yoga Class Daily Challenge reps
Saturday	13.3 km run – and with a friend! Hatha Yoga Class Daily Challenge reps
Sunday	6 km run Daily Challenge reps (new for December) 1500m swim

A couple of things I want to camp on here…

• ·         The Daily Challenge – I finished the November challenge without a single missed day: 100 push ups, 100 squats, 100 reverse crunch tuck-ups, 20 crunches, 20 bicycles, 10 hip raises. I was so proud and so glad when it ended. I was ready for a change and looking forward to December. Until I saw December’s challenge: 100 burpees (crossfit style), 200 seconds of planking, and 2 minutes of stillness. Burpees. Are you freaking kidding me? And it figures this is a month with 31 days!!

• ·         It’s not a secret how I feel about swimming.  Or maybe this is your first time in these parts and you’re thinking… what? Read this. So today, I reluctantly headed to the frigid waters of the Maple Ridge pool to get my swim in. I had a bit of a wine detox going on and that didn’t help. Oh I got my swim in, and about 30 seconds faster than last week’s 1500m (whoo!) but there a few things I need to get off my chest: 

1)      Ridge Meadows Parks & Rec: would it kill you to turn up the heat a bit? Sometimes I’m not sure if I loathe the swim, or if I’m just dreading getting into the pool because the water is so damn cold. Why? Why? It doesn’t have to be this way.

2)      Why does length swimming sometimes mean one superhighway that has to be shared with the flutter-kick-board floaters and competitive swimmers? Why? I mean I suppose it’s great that there’s almost always lengths swimming at MR pool as opposed to Hyde Creek which gives you precious little to choose from and sometimes only an hour at a time… but really. If it says lengths swimming for 2 hours explicitly on the schedule, I’m expecting more than one double-wide lane roped off for everyone traveling up and down the pool. Lane rage. Hello.

3)      Fellas, this one is for you. I don’t understand the need to hang out on the ledge at the end of the lane in the deep end, standing side by side and offering up nothing but crotch to anyone hitting the end of the lane. I mean really, what’s the deal? You aren’t impressing anyone (I refer you to point number 1). And if I can swim 8 lengths and still be met by your crotch in the deep end, this no longer qualifies as a rest, you aren’t here to swim. Move along. Maybe go sit in the sauna with your buddies.

On to week three! J