My Road to Challenge: Training Week 10 of 40

	This week (Jan 20 - 26)	Cumulative
Total training hours	17:44	140:04
Swim	03:02 / 5.95 km	20:17 / 34.9 km
Bike	04:00 (spin class + trainer time)	23:35 (spin class + trainer time)
Run	04:46 / 46.12 km	38:24 / 408.16 km
Strength training	02:40	26:23
Yoga	3:15	26:15

Week 10 was a good training week.  I had a good strong swim workout with the Club on Saturday. During one set, I swear I thought I was sweating under my swim cap! And when we did the “fun” stuff at the end and Shaun had us swim underwater as far as we could, I actually made it the entire length of the pool! …Popping up at the shallow end, ready for accolades only to find everyone chatting amongst themselves and climbing out of the pool. LOL.  Today was the Club’s first run time trial of the year and while I didn’t PR, I did run my 3^rd fastest 5K (26:27) on a day where the trail was full of people and their dogs, after a night of martinis & champagne cocktails, and following a couple of weeks of ramped up training. I’ll take it.

After today’s efforts, I hit the mall to celebrate completing 10 weeks of this 40-week training journey. Retail rewards thanks to the lululemon gift card that my very generous son gave me for Christmas. Groove shorts, pacesetter skirt, and the practice daily tank. New gear and the potential postponement of laundry day… Yay!

Here is week 10:

Monday	15 minute warm-up spin + 45 minute weight workout TRX Bike workout TRX pikes – 25 2100m swim
Tuesday	8.2 km run 1:15 spin on the trainer Yin/Restorative Yoga Class TRX pikes – 26
Wednesday	4.7 km run 35 minute weight workout TRX pikes – 27 Tri-Club Spin Class 2000m swim
Thursday Rest Day	Hatha Flow Yoga Class TRX pikes – 28
Friday	6.2 km run Weight workout with my trainer (45 minutes)
Saturday	1850m coached swim workout 22 km run
Sunday	Hatha Yoga Class 1:30 spin on the trainer 5 km time trial run

Unfortunately, with week 11, I’ll be on call for most of it. Boooo! Good thing it’s taper time for the First Half so no long runs, accomplished on short loops, with the Blackberry in hand. Swimming will require the enlistment of my support crew to sit on deck with my Blackberry in hand, ready to flag me down if it rings. Fortunately, my girl will do it for 5 bucks a swim!

Keep Calm... Yeah Right!

Tuesday, the Challenge Penticton Facebook  peeps posted this:

It's great right? I mean this is my strategy - except perhaps for the keeping calm part. And I feel like I'm training like mad but really, compared to who? I have no idea how many hours anyone else is putting in. And not only that but last week's 20 hour milestone included 4 yoga classes including a couple of Yin/Restorative classes. A good addition to my game plan but perhaps a stretch to call it "training"! Yin classes are really just long-held stretches and Restorative is lying around on cushions remembering to breathe! So this prompted a moment of worry where I wondered... am I on the Kindergarten training plan for an ironman?

When Challenge Penticton posted this, they did so with the panic-inducing words "214 days to race morning!"  I promptly shared it on my Facebook page with the words "OMG. 214 days?". A friend and fellow ironman virgin and Challenge registrant replied with "Meh. 214 days is a long time."

Au contraire, my friend, au contraire! I felt it was my responsibility to point out the obvious flaw in his carefree, non-neurotic reply. 

• That's only 30 weeks. If you swim, bike, run 3x/week, that's only 90 sessions per discipline. Now let's break down the bike since that's where you'll spend most of the race... 

• You're going to be inside on the trainer until may because of the weather... that leaves you 51 rides outside.

• You'll probably miss/shorten another 30% due to rain. Now you're down to 35 rides.

• You'll miss 20% of those just because you don't feel like riding, bringing you down to 28 rides. 

• Count on half a dozen rides to be spoiled by flats and you're down to 22 rides.

• When summer hits and the weather is good, drinking picks up and you'll miss half a dozen due to hangovers. Now you're at 14 rides.

• You go on vacation for 2 weeks.... 8 rides left.

• Maybe you do a couple of races so now you're down to 6 training rides.

• It's Vancouver and everyone wants to visit so you miss a week because you're hosting guests. That means in the next 214 days, you have just 3 good training rides outside!!! 

Clearly what's called for here is a different approach:

Happy training! 212 days...

My Road to Challenge: Training Week 9 of 40

	This week (Jan 13 - 19)	Cumulative
Total training hours	20:04	122:20
Swim	02:56 / 5.45 km	17:15 / 28.95 km
Bike	04:30 (spin class + trainer time)	19:35 (spin class + trainer time)
Run	05:08 / 46.74 km	33:38 / 362.04 km
Strength training	03:15	23:43
Yoga	4:15	23:00

I did it! I finally managed to get a better balance of the training workload throughout the week. And had the discipline to get up at 4 through the week so that I had a morning workout and an evening workout, rather than cramming everything into the evening. And as a result, I had more opportunities to get to yoga. So week 9 wraps up at just over 20 hours of training – my biggest training week ever! Go, me. Unfortunately, despite all that training, and being pretty strict with the calories, I’m not back to where I’d like to be on the scale. But I’m working on it.

I was feeling pretty positive about all of this week’s training until today. Slept in a bit and enjoyed a lazy morning with coffee in bed for the first time in a long time… No regrets there. But I had some yogurt, Q’ia & blueberries, then got up and did 1:45 on the trainer. Wolfed down a banana, took a quick shower and headed out to the pool for an hour. Went from the pool to meet a friend for coffee. And despite being ravenously hungry and overdue for lunch, I opted not to eat anything, and nursed a black coffee. So when I got home late in the afternoon, the prospect of a run… I just wasn’t feeling it. I was very close to not running tonight but appealed to friends on Facebook to please shame me into running. And this little gem helped get me out the door for what turned out to be a pretty great run.

Here is week 9:

Monday	1:15 spin on the trainer 7.5 km run TRX Arms & Shoulders workout TRX pikes – 10
Tuesday	15 minute warm-up spin + 50 minute weight workout 10.5 km run (including hill repeats x 7) Yin/Restorative Yoga Class TRX pikes – 12
Wednesday	15 minute warm-up sin + 40 minute weight workout TRX pikes – 15 Tri-Club Spin Class 2000m swim
Thursday Rest Day	Hatha Flow Yoga Class Hatha Candlelight Yoga Class TRX pikes – 16
Friday	5.3 km run Fitness test + weight workout with my trainer (45 minutes) TRX Legs & Hips workout TRX pikes – 17
Saturday	1450m coached swim workout 17 km run Yin Yoga Class TRX pikes – 20
Sunday	1:45 spin on the trainer 2000m swim TRX Core workout TRX Chest & Back workout 6.5 km run

On to week 10. 

My Road to Challenge: Training Week 8 of 40

	This week (Jan 6 - 12)	Cumulative
Total training hours	13:16	102:16
Swim	03:07 / 5.25 km	14:19 / 23.5 km
Bike	03:10 (spin class + trainer time)	15:05 (spin class + trainer time)
Run	03:34 / 33.6 km	33:38 / 315.3 km
Strength training	02:25	20:28
Yoga	1:00	18:45

In my training week 7 recap, I warned that week 8 would continue to look unbalanced so I’m not even going to talk about it. I worked hard to fit in all of the training in my plan this week and am proud to say, I managed to get it all done. I’d like to be doing at least 2 yoga classes a week but that wasn’t in the cards this week – and that’s OK. I got there today and boy, did I need it! I was a little stiff.

Week 8:

Monday Rest Day	Nothing at all. Family time, goodbyes.
Tuesday	7.5 km run
Wednesday	Tri-Club Spin Class
Thursday	6 km run 1800m swim
Friday	40 minute spin on the trainer 1 hour weight workout with my trainer
Saturday	1650m coached swim workout 1:30 spin on the trainer 45 minute weight workout 5 km run
Sunday	40 minute weight workout 1800m swim 15 km run Hatha Yoga Class

Picture diary? Yeah, haven’t really been on top of that. Partly due to family matters and partly due to dropping my phone and killing it… grabbing a quick pic pre-mid-or-post workout just hasn’t been happening.

The on-call schedule for 2014 finally came out at work, and as luck would have it, the weeks I’m on-call prior to Challenge already fall on recovery weeks. And those that fall while I’m still in this “transition” training, continuing the serendipitous streak, fall during fall-back or taper weeks before my running races. So here I am working a 12-week transition plan, getting ready to head into a 20-week ironman plan and with 4 “flex” weeks to distribute that I don’t really need. So in figuring out how to fill in the blanks in my training plan, I’ve been thinking about what other tris I might consider doing before Challenge. Oliver Half Iron in June? Squamish Olympic in July? Both? Something else? I’m still undecided. 

My Road to Challenge: Training Week 7 of 40

	This week (Dec 30-Jan 5)	Cumulative
Total training hours	13:05	89:00
Swim	01:57 / 2.75 km	11:12 / 18.25 km
Bike	01:45 (trainer time)	11:55 (spin class + trainer time)
Run	04:37 / 44.1 km	30:04 / 281.7 km
Strength training	02:16	18:03
Yoga	2:30	17:45

In my last post, I mentioned that life had overshadowed my training – and in a big way. My mother in law was admitted to hospital on December 23^rd, unexpectedly. Six days later, the doctors advised that she would not recover from her ailments, and that we were looking at a few more days with her, another week at best.  And so training, and blogging about training, have not been a priority. I haven’t abandoned my training completely. Oh no.  But I have tried to keep my training in perspective as I manage my time, and support my husband. For my planned workouts, I missed a spin, a run, and a couple of strength workouts. And I know in the big picture, those won’t hurt my race efforts, and they won’t return me to my former size 26 self! My mother in law was a fighter and some would argue she was stubborn to boot. On December 29^th, we were told “a few days, a week at best”. She passed away last night, 10 days after her best case scenario. We’re going to miss her.  

So for training week 7, things still look pretty unbalanced – a trend that is continuing into training week 8. I know I’ll get it sorted out, when the time is right. And these last 2 weeks, it hasn’t been the right time to obsess about my training schedule.  

Monday Rest Day!	Nothing at all. Hospital & family time.
Tuesday New Year’s Eve	1750m swim Hatha Yoga Class
Wednesday New Year’s Day	10 km race 45 minute spin on the trainer 15 minute TRX Chest & Back workout Daily Challenge WOD: squats, tuck-ups, burpees
Thursday	6.1 km run 16 minute Daily Challenge Tabata: lunges, push-ups, tuck-ups, jumping jacks 15 minute TRX Legs & Hips workout 1 hour spin on the trainer
Friday	5.4 km run 15 minute Daily Challenge WOD: sprints, burpees, tuck-ups 1 hour weight workout with my trainer Hatha Yoga Class
Saturday	1000m coached swim workout
Sunday	22.6 km run

Picture diary… stay tuned.