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.

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I hired a coach in September. Other than the obvious goal of finishing, I would love to have a respectable swim time, a strong bike, and then just jog/walk the run. Everything was going along really well. I was getting a bit of swimming in and even started looking forward to my open water sessions. I was spending time on the bike as well as a treadmill. All of it ground to a halt when my mom got sick in October, and then training stopped altogether.

There’s this huge movement at the moment with regard to self-care and making sure you take care of yourself before assisting others. I really tried to follow the philosophy of putting your own oxygen mask on first. I was sticking to some of my workouts, and then I gradually reduced my workouts to simple runs at 30 minutes in duration. I found that I was much kinder when I did that. But when the going got really tough, and my mom got sick, I just couldn’t justify to myself getting away to work out anymore. Thankfully I had the full support of my coach, and we decided to go on a pause. She said I had plenty of time. And looking back now, maybe my opinion will change when I’m 120km into the bike segment at Ironman on August 30th, but I look back now and I wouldn’t have done anything differently. Putting on my own oxygen mask wasn’t strictly working out, and it looked like other things too… like sleeping in and having a quiet cup of coffee.

This post was sitting in the drafts, and I realized that I never finished writing it! However, it makes sense to be writing it now in the new year. Because of everything that had happened in our lives. And because there was an option do to a payment plan for my registration, so I took it (it didn’t appear to me that there were additional fees or penalties to do that) and ended up paying for the race over 3 payments. And it was only on January 1st that I received the familiar registration confirmation email from Active. That was my visual cue.

Well, I’m ready. I’m excited that I committed myself to this journey of becoming an Ironman finisher in 2020!

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