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!