It’s been an interesting week, to say the least, and while things have stopped changing at breakneck speed, we are still evolving by the minute. Here is my latest training recap for Ironman Canada 2020, sans swim workouts. If you missed last week, find that recap here. Not a day passed when I decided to stop going to the pool because of this pandemic, they announced facility closures across the city. My coach gave me bodyweight workouts to substitute for the swim sessions, and nothing has changed with the bike and run sessions. I am still grieving the loss of my June 70.3 race, and I frankly don’t expect Ironman Canada in August to proceed as planned.

SWIM

2 bodyweight sessions in place of the swim sessions. I was given the Oiselle Dirty Dozen workout, as well as another bodyweight workout. The Oiselle Dirty Dozen workout looks innocent enough until you actually do it and then cry inside. My coach had scheduled 45 minutes for the Dirty Dozen workout, which I thought would be plenty of time. I did a quick 5-minute run for a warmup and proceeded to do the workout.

I’m proud to say I did 2 rounds of the entire Dirty Dozen workout. I didn’t realize how many pushups I ended up doing until after the workout. The sheer number of pushups and the fact that I didn’t stretch enough afterward left me in pain for days. The next time I see that workout, I will put aside my ego and just do the best I can. I know I wasn’t maintaining proper form. The second bodyweight workout of the week was much easier, but it had jump squats in it! I love and hate jump squats. They’re hard as hell but build so much leg strength.

BIKE

2 sessions, my weekly heavy intervals session and another 2-hour session with a 20 minute FTP test. I’ve been able to increase my resistance week after week during my heavy intervals session. However, I did notice some knee pain starting to crop up during this last session. I have a feeling I was not activating my glutes enough, and not focussed enough on a 360 smooth pedal stroke. I told my coach about it, and she told me to dial back the resistance for next time.

My 2-hour bike session was a tough one. I decided to ride later in the afternoon at an hour or so after lunch. There was a 20-minute segment calling for “solid race cadence” so I put on a 20-minute Peloton FTP test class for motivation. I like playing it because they split the 20 minutes into 4 sections of 5 minutes. They also give you instructions on when to raise the resistance and move into higher power zones. It was a real struggle in the last 5 minutes, but I made my way through it. I was thrilled to see in TrainingPeaks that I had hit an all-time best for my 20-minute peak power!

RUN

2 sessions, my favorite varying hills session, and a 90-minute long run. I love the shorter run session because it’s basically 30-second intervals at varying inclines. It’s such a quick and snappy workout. The long-run was a bit of a mental struggle. I wasn’t in a great mood to start the day and was dreading the workout. It was an easy one, just plenty of 3-minute intervals at half marathon pace. I ran it a little faster the last time I did the same workout. I decided because I was a little stressed out today, to run it a couple of points slower so that I wouldn’t be taxing my body as much.

Something finally clicked after 2/3 of the intervals and I was finally comfortable in my workout. It was a long time to run and mentally struggle, but it’s days like this that build mental strength. I was listening to an instructor the other day who was telling us that we’re always going to be physically capable, it’s the mind that requires training. I wholeheartedly agree, so I just kept repeating positive mantras to myself. “Make this your best effort yet” is one of my latest favorite mantras.

Overall Thoughts

This latest Ironman training recap thing might be one of the last few that I will get to do! Races in June are getting canceled. At the time of writing this blog post, we haven’t hit the peak of the pandemic, and so that leaves a lot of uncertainty as to what the summer will look like. I am bracing myself for Ironman Canada to be canceled. I don’t see it getting rescheduled to a later date in 2020. There is a lot of work that goes into a race of that magnitude, and given the size of the community in Penticton, I just don’t think a postponement is feasible.

My overall optimism on Ironman training and my outlook in this pandemic is wavering a bit today. I need to remind myself that there are so many factors outside of my control, and we’re just doing the best we can at this moment. I am grateful for everything I do have, and everything I get to do still.

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My Ironman Canada training sessions went very well this week. We also started to see many race cancellations this week. My “A” race in May was canceled. One of my 2020 goals was to achieve a sub 2 hour personal best at the half marathon distance. More on the race cancellations in an upcoming post. I had a work trip that got canceled, so I was able to complete all my training sessions. If you missed last weeks recap, you can find that here!

Swim

2 swims, one was 2800m and the other at 2500m. 2800m is the furthest I’ve ever swam in one session, and I believe it’s the second time I’ve ever done it! According to Strava, the last time I swam that distance was in 2015. It’s like I don’t even believe it myself that I swam that distance. I felt really good with that 2800m swim. I think it could’ve been due to the good amount of pasta I had eaten the night before. It’s making me think I should be adding more carbs into my diet. Eating a ton of carbs makes me super bloated, but I don’t care about that anymore. I really liked how strong I felt on my swim and I am chalking it up to the carbs.

Bike

2 sessions, heavy intervals and a 2 hour 40 minute ride! Nothing to write about with the heavy intervals ride, only that we added a few more intervals. My 2 hour 40 minute ride was a bit of a workout. We had gone out for dinner the night before. I had also gone out for lunch with a friend. It must have been something I ate that set a bad tone throughout my body for the next day. I woke up with a headache, and my stomach felt off all day. The feelings hadn’t going away by the time I got on the bike for my workout.

I felt fine to be riding my bike and for that amount of time. The mental challenge ended up being trying to reconcile my brain wanting to ride more comfortably and a bit harder, my body wouldn’t have any of it. My legs weren’t turning over as fast as they could, and I generally felt sluggish. I felt breathless for more than half of the ride, which was weird to me. I drank almost 3 bottles of water, and only had a few wine gums.

When I uploaded the numbers into Training Peaks, it let me know I hit some peak performances. That was really surprising to me. I haven’t asked my coach if it’s meaningful to be able to hold higher heart rates over time, but I hit a few of those. Like, x beats per minute over a 90 minute period. I hit a new 90-minute peak for power too, so that was nice to see. All in all, I’m happy to have gotten that ride over with.

Run

2 sessions, a hills intervals run, and a 1 hour 40 minute hilly long run. I’ve been tracking my (treadmill) speeds, and this run was done marginally faster. It’s been really nice to see my run speeds improve. I know we were doing a bunch of work before my last half marathon in October, and with all of this consistency and strength work, I am confident my road running speeds will improve when it’s time to get on the road.

Since my half marathon in May got canceled, we are looking at the Kelowna Wine Half in June, and then Seawheeze in August for our only half marathons and road races. Recently, Justin and I have decided to lay off on so much running. We are loving all of the cycling we have been doing on our Peleton. We’ve learned the hard way of how to stay healthy and strong as runners too, so I’d like to think we know what we are doing. But we’re going to scale back on road running so that we can keep our bodies healthier for longer.

Overall

It is probably going to be a while before my Ironman Canada training recap will include swimming again, considering what is happening around the world and in our community. They haven’t closed down the pools yet, but I let my coach know that I didn’t want to head out for any more swims at our pools for a while. Unfortunately, the lake is still too cold to go swimming in, and thermal wetsuits are really expensive!

Despite the upset on my long ride, I think I should be able to hit a new 90km personal best at a half ironman race. My warmup race for Ironman Canada is a local race in June, but I am not holding my breath on it happening. I’m going to write another post on my feelings about our races being canceled. Other than that, we’re just working on sticking to our training routines as much as we can!

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Swim

2 sessions at 2700m each. I am super proud of this week’s efforts. The first swim took me around 1h 20min to complete, I forgot my Garmin so that’s an estimate. My next swim was much faster, at around 1h 7min. I was resigned to spending just as much time at the pool as my first swim this week and was happy to see how much quicker I was able to get the same distance done. To be fair, I had different workouts for each swim, and really it doesn’t matter how long it takes me during training as we weren’t doing time trials. But considering how swimming is not exactly my forte, it just really pleases me. I’m getting close to swimming the farthest I’ve ever swum in a single session.

Bike

2 sessions, my heavy intervals session, and 2 hour 15 minute long ride. The heavy intervals sessions is now marginally longer, at 1 hour 10 minutes. It’s a nice workout. My long ride was a good one, and similar to last week where we had a “mad effort” segment. It was only 10 minutes vs. the 20-minute segment. I did the best I could and tried to drop some higher efforts at the end. We went to mail a letter the other day, and there were Haribo candies on sale that caught our eye. I had a craving, so we picked up a few packages. I ended snacking on quite a few for my long ride and thought it made for some good fuel.

Run

2 sessions. One Moneghetti session, and one long run session at 2 hours. Moneghetti workouts help build endurance and speed. I enjoy this weekday workout a lot because it feels snappy. It’s a little Fartlek-y in a ladder format, so it feels snappy. This long run consisted of 18 3 minute half marathon pace intervals. My long run is after my long ride, so I thought it was going to be hurtsville.

The long run was surprisingly not terrible! I felt pretty strong throughout my long run, with the exception of my last 2 intervals where it felt like I was developing a side cramp. I didn’t feel thirsty, but I must have been dehydrated. Just like my long ride, I also snacked on some Haribo candies. I ended up doing about 15 minutes of stretching after my run. It felt like my hips and legs really needed it, and I’m glad I did. I don’t think I stretched enough after my long ride, so I made sure to spend some extra time on my hamstrings.

Overall Thoughts

In terms of this Ironman Canada training recap, this felt like another good training week. I was thrilled and proud of how far I am now swimming. I’ve been trying to keep the calories up, as well as keeping up with hydration. Hydration was my focus from last week, and I think I did a decent effort. But I know the night before my long ride, I indulged in a few cocktails and didn’t drink as much water as I could have. It seemed to turn out fine because I was able to put out a pretty good effort. Though I did end up going to bed really early that day. And then I got a little crampy on my long run the next day. It looks like I’ll have to keep working on hydration.

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26 weeks to Ironman Canada. If you missed last week’s Ironman Canada Training Recap, you can find it here. I had a work trip that ended up shortening my longer weekend workouts, as well as gave me 2 rest days for the week. I felt pretty good after traveling all day to get to my destination last week. My hotel had Peloton bikes, so I had the luxury of doing my workouts on one. The treadmills were also high quality, which made for nice running. There was a decently sized lap pool for me to do my swims, but we didn’t bother with any swim workouts while I was away for work.

Swim

Only 1 session. I skipped my second swim, because we had a friend drop into town, and decided to spend the day entertaining her and taking a rest day. Originally, we thought we would take her skiing or cross-country skiing, and that would’ve been my workout for the day. We ended up just hanging out all late morning and afternoon. And after she took off, Justin and I decided to keep it a rest day.

I also got a new swim toy, a new pull buoy from Eney Buoy! I had a 2500m swim and felt pretty good throughout. The Eney Buoy is bigger and floatier and helps keep my legs higher in the water. I’ve also tried to start breathing bilaterally more. My coach said I don’t need to breathe bilaterally, but it is a good skill to have. When I started to pay attention, I realized that I could get more frequent breathes if I did bilateral breathing. So I’m going to try to keep it up for the next few swims and see how it goes. It felt like I was able to swim faster. So we shall see how it all goes. I’m also due to record more videos for my coach to review.

Ride

2 sessions, my weekly heavy intervals session, as well as a long ride. I had a 20-minute race effort close to the end of my 2-hour ride, after a bunch of 5 minute heavier efforts. I wanted some motivation through that segment, so I put on a 20 minute FTP test with Olivia on my phone. The first 10 minutes went by really fast, and so did the next 5. The last 5 became a bit of a mental struggle, but I powered through. I really wanted to see some high numbers for my watts and output. 

I wasn’t sure how hard to push on the 20-minute race effort. After a little bit of mental wrestling, I decided that it would be a waste of time if I didn’t give the 20 minute my true best. That last 5 minutes of the 20-minute effort got ugly. And I told my coach that. She told me that we were doing this for mental strength. There will be times when I’m out on the race course, and this is one of those moments where I can remind myself how strong I am and how I can push through. 

Run

2 sessions, Fartleks session, and a 90-minute long run. My speed session was decent. It was the last day of my work trip and I was getting a bit tired from talking all day and the lack of sleep. I ran all the work segments and walked a bit of the easy segments. I forgot to wear my heart rate monitor, but I think I put in a good effort and close to my desired half marathon pace. 

My long run was 90 minutes and a hilly one at that. My warmup paces are starting to get a little faster. And I ran all the hills and flats at the same speed. The long run felt pretty good, even though I walked a few times. I took one gel, and a bottle of water. The gel was a Honey Stinger, and a pretty tasty one. I had the Fruit Punch flavor, and it tasted just like honey. We might have to pick some up for future training runs and races.

Overall Thoughts

My work trip was busy with very long days. However, I am very happy with how the week went. While I was gone, I didn’t skip a single workout and was able to put out efforts that I am proud of. Something I do want to work on is better hydration. Last week, I am sure I did not drink enough water. And with all the air travel and work, I know I didn’t take in enough water throughout the days. And even now with being home, I’m still not hydrating very well.

I’m also trying to figure out how I feel about “skipping” that one swim, which ended up giving me 2 rest days this week. My coach also said it was fine because it was a lower volume week for me anyway. And I don’t feel guilty as it was a day well spent. It might have been possible to get out for a swim after we sent out a friend off. But Justin hadn’t taken a rest day in a while, so I think it was that was a day well spent. We’re not in the thick of Ironman training just yet, and I don’t want to neglect other areas of my life.

I hope you enjoyed reading this Ironman Canada Training Recap. We’ve got plenty more coming up.

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Welcome or welcome back to my Ironman Training Recap – 27 Weeks! There’s only 27 weeks to race day. Last week’s training recap is here, in case you missed it. I felt pretty good with getting all my training done this week. It was a little challenging with managing my time since we were hosting and entertaining our family for a week, and traveling for work that cut into my weekend. I had to do my long ride before I left. And I’m happy to report I did entirely all early morning workouts, because I didn’t want to open up any chances of missing my workouts by working out later in the day. Not only do we love happy hours, but so does our family haha!

Swim

2 swims, 2500m and 2400m. Nothing new to report here with swims. We hit a new distance this week, 2500m. I am focusing on turning my arms over faster, so that I can speed up my swim pace. I can feel my back getting stronger and more muscular, so that’s kind of cool. Hopefully the focus on a faster cadence pays off, and I won’t have to pick up a swim tempo trainer. I also ordered a new swim buoy from Eney Buoy so I’m very excited to use that next week when I return from my work trip.

Bike

2 sessions, 1 hour heavy intervals and a 2 hour session. The bike sessions both felt great. We’ve been eating out all week, and I had a little bit too much to drink the night before my long bike ride session. I was a little worried about how that ride would go, but it ended up going really well! I hit my biggest power output to date, so that was super neat to see!

Run

2 sessions, 1 hills session and another short efforts run. I didn’t get a chance to do a long run on the weekend as I had to spend one of the days travelling. My short efforts run was the day after my all-day travel day. We are talking 16+ hours. It was only about 45 minutes long, and after about 6 hours of sleep. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go, but overall it felt really good!

Overall Thoughts

I am really proud of how this week of training went. We were also hosting our family for a little over a week, and I had limited options to train since I wanted to maximize my time with them and my hubby. It feels like my energy levels have also been higher throughout the day, which has been a nice benefit from early morning workouts. It was kind of a bummer to miss out on my long run, but we have plenty of time until my first half marathon of the year. So I won’t stress out about it too much.

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Ironman Canada Training Recap – 28 Weeks

Swim

2 swims, 2300m and 2400m. Like I said before, I felt much stronger on the swims this week. I’ve been working on entering the water wider and speeding up my turnover. I’ve been doing a lot of swims with paddles. And the 2400m swim was all paddles. I feel a lot better than last week with regard to my swims. I often sneak out for lunchtime swims, but because the distances are getting much longer, I think I might have to switch up my schedule soon.

Bike

Only 1 this week, a heavy intervals session. We do this one every single week without fail. And we only had one bike session this week, since we are trading out the long bike session for a day of skiing! We did 1 heavy intervals session, and I felt pretty strong. I hit new resistances again on the bike, but I wasn’t able to hit as many high heavy intervals as last week.

When I told my coach we wanted to go skiing this weekend, I will admit, I was a little disappointed to see we were going to swap the bike session out vs the run. Though, I suppose we have the BMO Half Marathon coming up pretty soon in, so it makes complete sesnse. That race is only 11 weeks away, so I should definitely be working on the runs!

Run

2 sessions. A hilly session as well as a 1 hour and 45 minute long run. I think I mentioned it last week that I had a bit of knee pain after my bike and run sessions, so I spent some time rolling out my legs after my bike session, as well as my long run. This week, I felt a lot better on my long run. I think it helped that most of the run was at 2% on the treadmill, so I got to activate some different muscles. Not a single twinge of knee pain today. I also did a new set of post-run stretches, and I think that helped too.

The long-run called for the warmup, then 45 minutes at a moderate effort at 2% incline. Then a 5km best effort, then into the cooldown. I didn’t bother texting my coach to ask her to clarify if I needed to run the 5k effort at the 2% incline too and decided to run that at 2% incline too. I figured it would be great for training.

Other Activities

We’re spending a day at Big White to go skiing. It’s the first time all season that we’ve gone skiing. It was such a nice day! Visibility wasn’t great, but there was so much champagne powder. It was pretty busy because it was Family Day weekend in BC, but it was still really enjoyable. We skied at a very leisurely pace because we had a long run the day before and I didn’t want to have fried legs for my heavy intervals workout the following day.

Overall Thoughts

I was listening along to an amazing class with Chase Tucker on Peloton Digital, and I never usually take his classes. But I really liked how in the last segment where he asked us to give our best efforts. And he said that didn’t necessarily mean the highest number on the tread, but that it could mean being the most present or being in control of that self-talk. That really resonated with me, and I bucked up a bit. He also said something that made me commit to evolving my self-talk.

Chase said something along the lines of, do not tell yourself that this is good enough, but ask yourself can you do more? Can you do better? And I absolutely LOVED that. Lately, I have been dreading small parts of my workouts, like when I read that I had to do a 5km effort after an hour of running in my long run. Or like seeing 2 10x100m in my swim workout.

I immediately started thinking about what speeds I should set the treadmill at, instead of just going out big, and scaling back if I had to. I think it’s the ego. And a bit of limiting behavior. And I know not every workout has to be a complete sweat fest. Anyway, I don’t know when it happened where my inner voice became not so nice. But I’m working on it. Positive self-talk is just like a muscle, and you have to work on it all the time.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my latest Ironman Canada training recap – 28 Weeks. Below the form are all the previous recaps for your reading pleasure!

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All Ironman Canada Training Recaps

Here are all the previous Ironman Canada training recaps for your reading pleasure!

• This post is the 28 Week recap
• 29 Weeks
• 30 Weeks
• 31 Weeks
• 32 Weeks

The post Ironman Canada Training Recap – 28 Weeks appeared first on The Lifestyle Of Us.

Swim

2 sessions, a 1500m and 2000m swim. Woah. These were a doozy this week.

The first workout was the 1500m swim where you swim a bunch of 25m hard, as well as a 200m hard. The second workout was a 2000m in the form of a Walton 50’s workout, where you swim hard every few intervals. The easy-to-hard ratios slowly dwindle until you’re just swimming fast.

During that 2000m swim, I caught myself saying how tired I was. And it reminded me of this podcast I recently listened to, on Oprah Super Soul Conversations. Essentially the podcast message that I took away was, don’t speak into existence things you don’t want. Instead of thinking, “oh I’m so tired, I can’t wait to be done” I switched to saying things like “just keep swimming” and “swim faster”. And I think it worked. It got my mind away from how many intervals I had left to swim fast. The “I’m tired” is the equivalent of negative self-talk, which is pretty detrimental in training or racing.

I don’t know when that type of self-talk snuck into my vocabulary but it’s good to have recognized it now and train myself to do better. Normally, to pass the time when I’m swimming, I just repeat to myself, “just keep swimming”.

Ride

2 sessions, A 50-minute heavy intervals session, and a 2 hour 10 minute long ride. I am hitting all-time new resistances on my bike! My legs are getting stronger and it should be fun to see how much more fun mountain biking will be in the spring, and more importantly how much faster I will be road cycling and in my races!!

Run

2 sessions, a speed session, and a 1 hour 40 minute long run. My speed session felt great! I’m very happy with how it’s going. I can feel my sub 2 hour 1/2 marathon PB. It’s a guilty habit/pleasure of mine to run close to the console. I know it’s probably not that good for me and probably messes up my form. So what I’ve done is stretched a resistance band across the handrails so it forces me to run further back on the treadmill. And I’ve tried to engage my arms in running more. It’s just something I hear in all our Peloton run classes. I think I might’ve gone a bit too hard with pumping my arms during that session because my back was a bit sore the next day. It’s either from that from shovelling.

The long run felt a little challenging, but overall pretty good. There were 15 3 minute half marathon pace intervals, and then a 10-minute medium effort after. I was able to do all the intervals at a reasonably challenging pace, as well as the 10-minute effort. I had a slight pang of knee pain, but I think it was just from some muscle tightness. I spent a bunch of time after the run cooling down, as well as stretching and using our Roll Recovery to massage my thigh.

Other Activities

I did not get a massage on my rest day. I should have went, but I didn’t feel like trekking out there in all the snow. So then my focus on rest day became plenty of eating and hydrating. My arms and back are starting to get to the point where they’re pretty sore from the workouts. And it’s been snowing a ton lately. The snow is pretty heavy at times and can be difficult to shovel, especially on a steep driveway. So we finally busted out the snow thrower, and it is the greatest! It makes clearing the driveway so fast and so easy. And I don’t have to worry about Justin or I throwing out our backs from chucking snow 10 feet into the air onto giant snow piles.

Coaching Feedback

A while back my coach had requested some recordings of my swim. So last week I finally brought my GoPro with me and tried to record some videos. I ended up taking more videos of my butt than anything, but I did find one video that was half decent to send to her for review. Initially, I was fearful about sending the videos to her because I didn’t want to be “judged”. But I came to the conclusion that that was a fixed mindset way of thinking.

I need to get better, and I need feedback on my swim! My coach saw my arms crossing my center line in the video, which I had noticed too… and one of the reasons why I didn’t want to send the video. She told me to enter wide and a few other things. And for the 1500m session, I made some more video recordings to send her. I got great feedback from those too, and some more pointers that have helped a ton.

Going forward, my focus for swimming is now: my arms entering wide, and really throwing my arms over hard. Entering wide engages your lats more, and give you more power swimming. Wider, faster strokes. I haven’t encountered any shoulder issues so far, so my coach has been giving me workouts that incorporate both pull buoy and swim paddles. As a result, those swim toys have been helping to build my swim strength in a big way. All this consistency in training is going to get me in great swim shape. I am beyond thrilled considering where I started in triathlon swim, I am so happy with the progress.

All Ironman Canada Training Recaps

Here are all the previous Ironman Canada training recaps for your reading pleasure!

• 30 Weeks
• 31 Weeks
• 32 Weeks

The post Ironman Canada Training Recap – 29 Weeks appeared first on The Lifestyle Of Us.

Swim

2 swim sessions, both Walton sessions. Feeling pretty good so far. No shoulder pain from re-incorporating using swim paddles. If you’ve never swam with swim paddle before, it’s the best. It builds strength, and lets you swim so fast. It’s a joy to be able to blow past people in the fast lane. I’m not a fast swimmer… YET. So swimming past people brings me great joy.

BIKE

2 sessions, a heavy intervals and a 2-hour long ride. Feeling pretty good here. Starting to hit some new resistance ranges on the bike, which is really encouraging. I look forward to all my bike sessions, and I hope I can say this in a few months still. It’s the most important part of the Ironman, and I want to be strong and be able to enjoy my day out there.

There was a 5 minute section on my 2 hour ride that did test my mental strength. It was the second 5 minutes hard at 60-65rpm, 3 minute easy section. Right before the 15 minute cool down, and more than an hour and a half of riding. I wanted to give in and turn down the resistance, but I was riding along to a Peloton class and the instructor said something along the lines of needing to push ourselves out of our comfort zones, because that’s when new neural pathways are created, and where growth happens. It message came at the perfect time. It reminded me to hustle and get the work done, and I was pretty happy to put out a consistent 200+ watts through that last 5 minute segment.

RUN

2 sessions, Fartleks and 90 minute long run. Inner thighs felt a little sore after the Fartleks session, but can’t complain. I’ve been diligent with doing my glute activations with resistance bands. The 90 minute run was a bit tougher than I expected. It was a hilly run, and I had to walk a couple of times. Not long, like 20 seconds or so, mostly to stop a side stitch from happening.

We’re doing a bunch of specific run workouts through the week (even in my long runs) which I used to do haphazardly back in 2017. It turned out well for me then. And even though it was all over the place, I managed a 2:02 half marathon. I’m very excited for what’s to come this year, because now I will have greater consistency to my overall training plan, and I should be able to run a sub 2 hour half marathon.

Reflections

Still feeling great this week, and reflecting on the month, feeling great about the month too as reflected in my Ironman Canada training recap. I love streaking challenges, where you do something like every day of the month kind of thing. So I jumped on the New Years bandwagon and  started off with a bunch of 30 minute bike sessions to ease my way back into training. Then I finally messaged my coach to get started with triathlon training again, and I think we’ve made great progress so far easing me back into the swing of things. This week did have a jump in volume, which I didn’t really realize until my coach told me so. Overall, still feeling good and strong.

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I don’t know how people can travel for week-long business trips with carry-ons, I always need to pack a checked bag when I travel for work. It’s important for me to get in workouts when I travel for work, to stretch my legs, get the blood flowing, start the day strong, and reduce stress before important meetings. So when you have all your work and workout clothes in a carry-on, it just blows my mind.

Usually, I pack a bunch of workout clothes because I don’t like climbing into “dirty” workout clothes. I tried handwashing some gear on one of my last work trips, but it took forever to dry and I just didn’t like it. This time, I only packed 2 pairs of crops, 2 shirts, and tons of sports bras. I wore the same top and crops for 3 workouts, and then a fresh set on the last day. It was OK I guess. None of my gear smelled, which is what you get when buying quality workout gear, so that was also nice. So I guess I could just wear the SAME workout clothes every day … eugh. Does anybody have suggestions?

SWIM

None. I didn’t bother packing any swim gear this time. The pool at this hotel is slightly larger than other hotels I’ve stayed at in the area, but I didn’t think it would be worth it. On the last day I was there, I did see someone swimming laps in it. They also didn’t do flip turns like me (I don’t know how to flip turn, and you don’t have walls in triathlon swims anyway) and it just looked like a pain.

BIKE

3 sessions. I got a heavy intervals ride in, a short “medium/moderate/mad” or MMM effort ride in, and a long 90-minute MMM ride in. The MMM effort workouts are part of the Trisutto Method. I can’t remember the exact details of why it’s important, but I know it’s a good one. I feel like I’m getting stronger, so that’s been a big boost in the confidence of my bike strength.

RUN

I got 2 sessions done at the hotel. Short hill reps and an easy run. I have a long run slated for this weekend but will do a cross country skiing session instead. The tready runs felt great. I was able to run more comfortably at the same speeds, compared to the last time I was there. For example, I remember my jog effort at “5” on that treadmill as being really fast and quite the struggle, but this time I felt really strong!

OTHER

Cross country skiing as a substitute for a long run. And a 90-minute RMT massage. I want to try and be diligent with getting massages.

Overall Thoughts

I felt great this week. Despite flying across the country and being 3 hours off from my regular hours, I didn’t skip any of my scheduled workouts AND I managed to work out at 6am 3 times! This is what commitment feels like. There was no other choice, I just do not want to be 3/4 into my races and regret not putting in the work when it mattered.

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SWIM

Swam twice, two 900m swims. My first swim back after taking some time off, we just did a buoy-only swim. The second was a couple days later and we started incorporating paddles back in.

BIKE

2 bike sessions for a total of 1h140m. One was a heavy intervals session, and the other was big gear work. Both sessions felt great. I felt strong.

RUN

I had one run session and could have had one run session but traded it for a snowshoe with Justin. It was short hill reps, which I love. I started incorporating them in my training in 2017, and I attribute that as one of a couple of key types of sessions that helped build my run speed.

OTHER

2h17min of snowshoeing! It didn’t feel like much at the time, but I was pretty tired that evening, and my legs were sore the next day. Especially my calves! I also did a couple of abs sessions to build on my core strength.

Overall, I feel pretty good so far. 31 weeks feels close, but I’m being reassured by my coach that we have plenty of time.

The post 32 Weeks To Ironman Canada 2020 – Training Recap appeared first on The Lifestyle Of Us.