Ironman Canada - 27 weeks out

	IMC: 27 weeks to go (January 19-25)	Challenge: 27 weeks to go (Feb 10-16)
Total training hours	15:21	10:50
Swim	3:18 / 7000m	3:59 / 9450m
Bike	1:57 (16.5 km on the trainer + spin class)	4:28 (trainer time + spin class)
Run	4:13 / 41.9 km	2:23 / 24.44 km
Strength training	1:33
Yoga	4:00
SBR Total	9:28	10:50

A little less swim bike run than at this point pre-Challenge, and as with last week, a big variation in the distribution which of course makes sense given that I’m preparing for a marathon March 1^st! I also managed to keep a couple of strength workouts and a pretty spirit-nurturing number of yoga classes in the mix. Hooray… Next week I may not be patting myself on the back for that – at least that’s my prediction as I compose this midway through the week having no strength workouts or yoga classes under my belt… There’s a reason for that and if I can remember, I’ll talk about it next week.

This is how the week looked:

Monday	7.3 km run after work Plyo circuit at home
Tuesday	2300m swim before work “Bench Press for Cyclists” x 15 – trainer workout after work TRX push-ups & squats Hatha Yoga Class
Wednesday	Strength circuit at home after work PRM Spin Class
Thursday	Hatha Flow Yoga Class 7K run after yoga
Friday	2350m swim before work TRX push-ups to pike (to failure)
Saturday	2350m morning swim 5.2 km PRM run post-swim Hatha Flow Yoga Class
Sunday	1.5 km pre-race warm-up run Hypothermic Half Marathon  Gentle Hatha Yoga Class

So what are these “Bench Press for Cyclists” (see Tuesday this week)? This is the description my coach offered when I texted him after doing my first workout like this. I had assumed that the point of these was mostly mental and that their race-day payoff would come when I was miserably grinding up that third big hill out of Pemberton on the way back to Whistler… in the midst of my anguish, when not cheered by the knowledge that I was only 20 or 30 km from getting to run a marathon, I could console myself by saying “well, at least I’m not on the trainer, grinding out those 1 minute sets”. 

How these work is that after warming up, you hop off the bike and load up all the resistance your trainer has to offer. [If you’ve got a fancy trainer that you can adjust from the saddle, well la-dee-da, you still get the idea.] Then you get back on and get in your biggest gear, and you pedal at 40-45 RPM for a minute. Then you rest for a minute. If you’re spendy enough to have a fancy trainer you can adjust from the bike, you could dial down the resistance and spin. If you’re not, you just sit there gasping for breath and praying for death. And then you do it again. The minutes you are grinding away are very, very long. The rest minutes are alarmingly short. Oh sure, some will tell you a minute is a minute. They’re wrong. 

The first time I had to do these, I thought I had to do 16 and upon clarifying, realized there were only 8. When I was done, I texted “thank God there were only 8, not 16!”. The ominous reply: oh, we’ll get to 16. The following week, this workout made a reappearance and I had to do 10 of them. The week after that: 12. Foolishly I noted in the comments of workoutlog “these are getting easier already”. Ha. You see how many I had this week? That’s right, 15. Not easy.

Sunday was race day … Half Marathon number 13 and another attempt to go sub-2… lucky 13!  I’m going to post a race report but spoiler alert… you can tell from my PBs in the sidebar anyway: I didn’t do it.