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.

Ironman Canada 70.3 was such a challenging and awesome race!! It was a sufferfest for me, because I had some pain and nutrition issues, but I’m still going to sign up for this race again in 2018. We got to explore Whistler in the summer time, and have a mini race vacation, a race-cation. It was a Team Betty takeover, with 15 of us racing. A few friends were also racing, so it was awesome to have so many familiar faces.

The 70.3 shared the same course as the 140.6, and it was so awesome. We had amenities like wetsuit strippers, change tents, and sunscreen applicator volunteers. It was so luxurious! The race is also very spectator friendly, I saw my hubby 8x over the course of the day. Seeing Justin, our friends, as well as so many of my team mates was really special. Special thank you to Betty Designs for making sure we look amazing out there on the race course.

Pre-Race

I was thrilled heading into this race. I felt fresh, I felt strong, I felt ready!  Transitions were in separate places and had to be set up the day before, so there wasn’t much to do on race morning but bring nutrition and swim gear.

Race Morning

We got up around 530am. I felt so rested and ready to go. Since we weren’t racing until 9am, I thought I’d be able to manage 2 breakfasts. On a regular day, I have breakfast and am hungry again at 9am. So I started with oatmeal. I didn’t feel like eating, and I should’ve listened to my body. It was such a mistake. Eating created a huge knot in my stomach which ended up bothering me all day. Thinking it would pass, we packed up to head to T2 to catch the shuttles that would bring the athletes to T1. Justin then walked from T2 to swim start.

I dropped my favourite running hat into my T2 bag, and went to get body marked. I ran into a friend and we chatted on the bus all the way to T1. So happy we had that conversation, because I didn’t get a chance to preview the back half of the course so I had no idea what to expect. I knew it would be hilly, but I couldn’t visualize it until after our chat.

Since the 70.3 didn’t start until 9am, we bummed around T1 for so long. Put my food and water bottle onto my bike. Chatted with girls who were racked nearby. Watched the full 140.6 athletes start their day. The 70.3 got some time in the water before the race, so I made sure to get in and swam to the first buoy and back. Alta Lake was the perfect temperature, and the water was so clean and fresh. The lake was pretty calm, but it would change quite a bit during our race.

Swim Start

The swim is a rectangle. I started closer to the back, around the 40 min swimmers. I was hoping to find some fast feet to hang onto for a better pace than my own. It took a few minutes to get into the water, and I was feeling pretty calm. I swam straight out towards the yellow buoys, and found myself swimming close to the inside line the entire time. Got caught behind slower people a few times. Laughed at myself because I saw one person backstroking faster than I was front crawling. I generally enjoyed the swim out towards the first turn. I got a couple mouthfuls of water but thought it was due to poor body rotation. I hadn’t noticed yet that the waves were picking up.

Once I hit the first turn, it got a little choppy. Once I got to the next turn, I peeked at my watch and saw it was at 30 minutes. Then I looked around me and noticed it was a little quiet, and how wavy the water was. I kept swimming and I could feel every wave. I was starting to get nervous about my time, so I picked up the pace. Then the buoys started to feel farther and farther apart, so I got a little more nervous. Reaching the last turn buoy was a huge relief, because it looks like a short, straight shoot to the finish. But this is where the swim got really interesting. The water was super choppy and it was really windy. It was my hell.

Luckily in training, Leana and I went for a horrible swim at Kits. It took us forever to get to Kits Beach because of traffic, so I committed to swim at least an hour even though I just wanted to go to splash around and get some open water time. The waves were huge that day. It took us 40 min to swim 400m. I’m sure Leana could’ve swam a lot farther, but she’d wait while I panicked every 10 strokes and stopping to tread water and calm down. So while the last turn at the swim in Alta Lake sucked big time, I told myself to HTFU and keep going because I had been through worse.

T1

It was all smiles on the swim exit. I gave someone a high-five, and proceeded to the wetsuit strippers. I didn’t wear the straps on my bib shorts during the swim, so I held onto my pants to make sure they didn’t come off. I got my bike bag headed into the change tent. It was pretty quiet inside the tent so I had a volunteer all to myself. As I exited the change tent, there were sunscreen applicator volunteers, so I let them spray me down. I hurried over to my bike, and headed toward the exit. The mount line was surprisingly a bit busy, so I made my way to the left side and peddled away.

Bike 

I left my bike geared down, so that I would take it easy out of T1. It was a scenic ride past Alta Lake out to Highway 99. Popped some Tums, hoping it would sort out my stomach, and then later sipped on my liquid nutrition. As we got onto the highway and headed towards Callaghan Valley, my hips and deep in my hamstrings started to hurt. I tried moving around on my saddle and stretching on the descents. When it didn’t seem like the pain was going away, I started to get upset because now I was distracted from enjoying the bike course and scenery.

The pain in my hips and hamstrings finally ended after about 30km, but my stomach pain wouldn’t let up. Any time I sipped on my liquid nutrition, my stomach would protest and hurt even more. So I picked up some course nutrition. Managed to get down half a pack of Shot Bloks and a vanilla gel. After debating on making myself throw up, I attempted to around the 70km mark, with no success. Then I just dumped my liquid nutrition and decided that Gatorade and water would have to do. Always for fun, I packed Ghirardelli chocolates in my bento box, and I was so happy I did. I was able to get down a small square of caramel chocolate. It was only 60 calories, but it was a great pick me up. There were some great descents on the north side of Whistler towards Pemberton, so I made sure to enjoy them because they wouldn’t be so fun on the way back.

All in all, I managed to get in maybe 600+ calories by the time I finished on the bike. I was aiming for 1,100+ calories. So that calorie deficit had me on the verge of tears quite a few times. At one point, I actually started to see stars and my vision got a blurry. So that wasn’t fun but I survived. Since the bike course is 2 lollipops, it was so nice to see so many of my fellow Team Betty girls and other racers coming and going. It was uplifting to see so many familiar faces, and it made the time go by much better. I also saw Justin and our friends quite a few times too! So despite the pain, I really loved the bike course and experience. It was pretty hot and windy too, but I didn’t notice because my stomach hurt so much.

T2

It was really quick to get myself out of my cycling kit and into my tri onesie. I threw on my favourite racing hat, shoes, and race belt, and I was off. Justin was cheering me on out of T2, so I went over to give him a kiss and told him I’d still be a while until the finish.

The Run

I didn’t pack any nutrition because I was planning on Coke and water. When I made my way to the first aid station, I immediately grabbed a coke, and that made my stomach hurt too!! I was really counting on the familiarity of Coke on my stomach. It was settled, this day would stay hard. The beginning of the run course was pretty quiet without many spectators, so I sniffled and ran/walked, trying to hold back tears of frustration. My fellow team Amelia was out cheering, and she jumped up to give me a hug and I just started crying. I was so happy to see her, but so upset in that moment. She gave me a huge hug and sent me on my way. So I ran a bit more, and when I was far enough away, started to cry again hehe.

Eventually, something clicked and I decided to buck up and finish strong. The course finally got more busy, with more racers and people around. The run course was gorgeous, and went past Lost Lake and then up to Green Lake. Part of the run course was on dirt trail, and some on concrete. On some parts we ran alongside the highway, so we could see the full distance Ironman racers heading back into Whistler. I took ice at most aid stations to put down my trisuit. and it was divine. I ended up being able to get in tiny sips of Coke and water. Some people said the run course was pretty hilly, but I really didn’t think so.

THE FINISH

As I started to approach the finish line, all my pain went away. I high-fived people and soaked in the finish. I couldn’t find Justin, but he got this great photo of me!

OVERALL

Loved this entire experience!! I woke up Monday morning and decided I’d be racing this one again. Ironman 70.3 Canada was a great character builder. I wish I hadn’t got upset so much, but I didn’t give in and kept soldering on. Even if you are suffering big time, you can fake it til you make it. I made sure to smile all day, especially when it got tough. And guess what, it totally works!! I’m already making plans for Whistler 2018, can’t wait.

The post Ironman 70.3 Canada 2017 – Race Recap appeared first on The Lifestyle Of Us.

I just had the most fun I’ve ever had in a race at Ironman 70.3 Victoria. The training cycle for this one was pretty rough and not a priority at times, so I’m pretty happy how everything turned out. I had raced BMO Vancouver Marathon 6 weeks prior, and also wanted to have a great time at the Rock n Roll Seattle Half Marathon that would be 6 days after finishing Victoria. So with (the lack of) training, I was banking on my riding my marathon fitness, and seeing what I could pick up and cram in from a well-timed triathlon camp in Vernon that I attended three weeks prior to race day.

Athlete Check In/Bike Drop

Ironman Victoria 70.3 had the worst check in I’ve ever experienced. In previous years, all activities were held on the other side of Beaver/Elk Lake, and they moved it all this year so there would be more parking and space available. It was awful, so I can’t imagine how it used to be. When we arrived at Beaver Lake, the road by the highway was really crowded, so we decided that we should hop out and walk in with our bikes. It. Was. So. Far.

When we finally arrived at the Athlete Village area, there was a huge line up to check in, and I stood in line with our bikes before space finally cleared up on nearby racks. I needed to pay one day race insurance fee, and got diverted to the slowest table to even though I had exact change. Then we had to go to another table to sign waivers, and give permission on if our names could be shared in case of accident. Then we went to another table to pick up bibs and swim caps. Then another table for our chip timers. It was in a really small crowded tent, and I disliked the process here compared to other races.

The Athlete Village was kind of nice and had a few vendors. As a pre-race ritual, I went to go buy a new pair of goggles at the Aquasphere tent. I did like how there was a huge swag tent, there was lots of swag to look at compared to Ironman Calgary. I bought a bunch of race branded water bottles because it looked like they were running low, and planned on returning to the swag tent once I finished. We put the stickers on our bike, dropped off our bikes in transition, and walked by the swim start before leaving for the day.

Pre-Race

Since the race started around 6am, we woke around 4am so that we could get to transition early without rushing. I opted to eat a Clif bar for breakfast, which I took with me and ended up eating while setting up at transition. I was going to have a gel before the swim, but totally forgot.

Swim

With the way I swim, I really have no business participating in triathlons. But I really wanted a 70.3 finisher hat. I didn’t do any pre-swimming at the venue because everyone had nasty things to say about Elk/Beaver Lake. I didn’t do any open water swimming before this race, because the waters were still too cold. I was only swimming about 1x/week.The outdoor pools had just opened for the season. I didn’t even try on my new wetsuit until before athlete check-in/bike drop. The odds were really against me.

On race morning, we learned the swim was officially shortened due to lake weeds. Yay! Shortened swim should mean auto-PB. It didn’t take long to set up at transition, and I rushed so I could get in the water for a small warm up. I wore a one piece Sugoi trisuit, and quickly put on my wetsuit. I made sure to Bodyglide the back of my neck, around my elbows and knees. Walking barefoot from transition to swim start was honestly the hardest part of the entire day. The swim start was really far from transition and I should’ve brought flip flops.

The lake was warm and there was no visibility — perfect! All my triathlon swims have been in murky water, so this is all I know and I think I prefer it. I let water into my wetsuit, swam towards a buoy and got back out to get in line. It was a self seeded start and I put myself in the last 1/4 of the crowd. The swim start area felt like a cluster. The corral was too small, and there was not enough space to wait by the signs for your expected swim times. I’ve only ever experienced wave starts, so this rolling start was new to me but it felt very much like a running race. The gun went off, and you gradually make your way through the starting arch. Everyone started getting into the water, and I waded in until about waist deep and started swimming. Some people walked in until up to their neck. I swam a little bit and then started to get jostled. Nothing major, no punches or anything. But in the first 100m, every time I got bumped I would completely stopped and then I started to panic and get scared. But I couldn’t quit because I wanted that hat. And I was too close to the shore and the crowd. So I forced myself to keep going. I exhaled extra hard and counted my strokes to keep myself busy. After I passed the first buoy, I felt better. When I passed the second buoy, I was over the moon. I was suddenly having THE BEST SWIM EVER. I was having the best time ever. I just kept counting my strokes and enjoyed the swim. It was magical. Until it was time to turn back. The turn buoys switches sides (which was really confusing, I thought we kept all buoys to our left) and we got into the lake weeds. I didn’t love that. I didn’t know what to do so I started to swim weird. Then a weed landed on my face. But it wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. I thought that if you were to get into the weeds, it would start pulling you down into the depths of the lake and stuff. Nothing like that happened. The lake weeds were also nowhere as scary as people bumping into me.

We got pulled out of the water at the swim finish, which was a floating plastic dock thing. The volunteers form a human chain to hoist you out. No wetsuit strippers. I literally skipped and ran with joy into transition. I’ve never felt like I was having fun in an open water swim until now. I hope this is my new normal. My swim time was still pretty awful, 42:19 for either 1500 or 1600m, I’m not really sure what the distance was. I lost some time with the buoy confusion. I need to work on sighting, getting comfortable in crowds, and swim strength. So, basically everything.

T1

I was able to run to T1, which is a first for me. I had tucked the end of the zipper string into the velcro part on the neck of my wetsuit, so it was really easy to reach and start unzipping myself. I took off my swim cap and goggles and held them in my left hand while I pulled off my sleeve so they got safely stowed away. I sat down in transition to wrestle the rest of the wetsuit off. I rinsed off my feet using an extra water bottle, and put on my hot pink Betty Designs cycling jersey and Sugoi cycling shorts. Yes, on top of my one piece Sugoi trisuit. I like extra padding. It was overcast, and my jersey has SPF, so I skipped sunscreen.

BIKE

I had a great time on the bike, but I am so embarrassed by my time. I felt really strong and rode in the big ring for almost all of the ride. Compared to where I now currently ride and train, the Victoria course felt pretty flat, other than 2 major hills. I spent a lot of time with my head turned looking the at scenery. Not aero at all. I planned on riding by HR but couldn’t because the HRM I brought with me ended up being a dud. So I decided to go by RPE alone, and not check my time.

The course was really beautiful, but I felt like there were too many cars for my liking. There were also a few accidents. One was at an aid station, and I think I saw at least 2–3 ambulances over the course of the ride. But maybe that’s par for the course when you’re back of the pack like me. I rode with concentrated Infinit and water, and my nutrition felt bang on. I will ride with one disposable water bottle on future races, so I don’t have to fumble with water re-fills.

When I got back to transition, I finally looked at my time and was shocked! 4 HOURS?! I was so annoyed at my time, and got little disoriented so extra T2 time was wasted by trying to exit out the wrong corner of transition. 4 hours?! 4 hours. Boo. My RPE is a liar. I was hoping for at least 3:25 or under, and ended up being 03:45:13. I learned my RPE is a liar and elevation charts are greatly exaggerated. Next time, I’ll be sure to ride with a working HRM and most obviously, check my time.

T2

I was pretty upset at my bike time, so I forgot to take off my cycling shorts. I changed into my sneakers and threw on my race belt. I opted to run in my cycling jersey because the weather was still cool and I still didn’t want to bother with sunscreen.

RUN

The run was pretty flat, 2 loops around Elk/Beaver Lake. The aid stations were every 2km, but felt a lot farther than that in some places. Normally I run 10 minutes and walk 1 minute, but since I never do any speed work, I decided to try a new ratio of 4:1 and see if I could get free speed. I stuck to cola and water, and ate half of a peeled banana for some reason. Pre-peeled bananas are weird. It was pretty hard having to run by the finish line to start the second loop. I thought about how hard that would be on a 140.6. My second loop got a lot quieter. I also stopped for a bio break, and I’m convinced it was the reason why I did not PB (in reality, it was many things). There was a younger guy whose left leg didn’t seem to be cooperating, but he was limping faster than I was running. Just like how there were people who were backstroking faster than I was front crawling on the swim. We leap frogged a bit and chatted some. I lost him when he stayed to walk with a couple girls in really cute Zoot kits. It got a little warmer near the finish, so I started throwing a cup of water down my chest. I’ve seen plenty of other people racing in what look like cycling jerseys, and I loved racing in my hi-vis Betty Designs cycling jersey for so many reasons. It was easy to spot me. It kept me comfortable. It had sun protection and covered my back and shoulders, and I learned it could keep me cool when I needed it.

Overall Thoughts

I was pretty undertrained going into this race. I was getting into the pool once a week. Barely running. I was focussed on getting stronger on the bike (and I was getting there) but never doing any speed work. If I was racing in July, I would’ve been in much better shape. Especially with everything I learned at this awesome training camp. Regardless, it’s pretty cool to see what my body is capable of. Victoria won’t be the top of my list for next year, since it’s really early in the season for me and I don’t like taking the ferry from Vancouver. But I’m excited to race another 70.3 and see what happens. Thanks to my husband and family for being really supportive, and thanks to my friends for all your messages and encouragement.

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