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!).