Adventures in Tri - iTRYathlon training, week 3

Week 1 HERE
Week 2 HERE

Last week...

Monday: Bike, cross training
6ish mile bike ride to Target and back home - not too bad. Followed up with Tank Top Arms and 10 minute core.

Tuesday: Swim
Kind of, but not really. Mostly just practicing breathing and moving at the same time. 20 minutes easy pool time. Tuesday was my 35th birthday (heeeeeey, new AG!), and the day kind of sucked (not because of my birthday, just in general?). Anyway. That was all I could get myself motivated for, before I buried myself in bad tv, pizza, and ice cream cake.

Wednesday: Run, Swim
6 mile easy pace treadmill run, followed by riding my bike to a local lap pool for 30 minutes of drills and laps.

Thursday: Run, cross training
5 mile tempo run - nailed it. Goal: 1 mi wu, 3@ 9:44-9:22, 1 mi cool. Actual: 9:39, 9:32, 8:52. Followed by 30 minutes of Tank Top Arms, Core, and stretches.

Friday: REST!

Saturday: BRICK!
Easy pace 2 mile run, followed by - dun dun DUN - a 10 mile bike, at medium effort. The ride was not terrible - it was challenging, but in an entirely different way than running is.

Sunday: Long run
13 miles on trails. This was NO GOOD. But it was pretty.

Aside from yesterday's TERRIBLE run... Not a bad week, training-wise!

Running: 26 miles. Nice jump over last week. The paces are good, for me, so I'm happy with that. The tempo run was certainly challenging, and I threw in the last mile as a sort-of time trial - I think I could have maybe done a little faster, but I'm not disappointed with it, so it's fine for now. The long run Sunday ended up at an overall 14:50 pace - so for trails, not The Worst, but I'm especially okay with it knowing the elevation, stopping to take a billion pictures, and that I walked the last 4 miles - like, for real just walked.

Swimming: I really need to focus more here, because it's my most challenging sport so far, I think. I am still having trouble kind of connecting all of the movements - I know it will come with practice. I went to a neighborhood pool that was pretty great (aside from the skanky pants neighbor of mine that was there with NOT HIS WIFE, and did you know when you wear goggles you can see what people are doing under water GROSS). It for sure helps me with the leg soreness and fatigue, so that is great. If I ever stop feeling like I might drown, it might be something I want to add to my non-tri routine.

Bike: 2 rides, total of 16.5ish miles. I'm getting a little faster, so that's nice. The route we took had a lot of very short, but pretty steep inclines, so that was tricky - the race course has some long but gradual inclines. This week, I'd like to build in some training on similar routes to see how it goes.


Of note this week....

• Coach Martha from Tri La Vie advised us last week at the swim clinic that we would be exhausted mentally. Man. She was NOT joking. My brain is foggy and tired.
• Physically, I feel pretty good, even with the increased training. Last week, I put in 8.5 hours of training; the weeks preceding this were at 6:45, 5:30, 3:05. The variety of training elements helps - the swimming is definitely keeping my legs in good shape.
• I'm feeling pretty good about my run and bike - I was kind of eyeballing the results from last year to see how I'd stack up, and it looks like I probably won't be last, so that's great news ;). The run is coming faster than I anticipated, and the bike... I'm seeing steady improvement, and I'm not working a ton on it, so that's nice.
• The swim, though. That piece still confuses me.

Plan for this week....
Monday: Swim 30 min, cross train
Tuesday: Run, 6ish easy, bike
Wednesday: Bike, 1 hour (!!!), cross train
Thursday: Renegade Summer Trail Run #3! 5 miles
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Bike, swim (bike to swim clinic, then home), cross train
Sunday: Long - 12-14

********************************************************************
On Saturday, #1 raced the City of Cypress 5k with some of her Cross Country teammates. I ran the 10k here a few years ago, and it's a great event - the race is well organized, the finish is great (popsicles!!), the support is great, and it's CHEAP - $25 for any distance if you register in advance (which we didn't do because see above about my foggy brain).

I thought this was the cutest thing ever ever ever.

The H putting the timing chip on her shoe for her. ADORABLE.

It was warm and sunny out, so not super ideal conditions, and #1 was coming off of a pretty hefty training week at XC Camp - she's obviously a running machine, because she is piling on more mileage than I am in a week.

Somehow, she nailed a new PR! Her previous PR was set at Chapman 5k in 2011, at 22:08. Saturday, she came in 21:57. She's the fastest.

She runs so pretty!

It is a SUPER stacked field, and that 21:57 was good for 7th in her AG. Madness.

 Also, I love spectating.