Saturday, March 22, 2014

IMMT Training Week 8 and 9: Work hard, crash harder

So it happened. I skipped a recap week. Training and work and life swallowed me whole and I got nothing left, not even brain power to put down things like 1+1=3. Wait, is that right? Does it mean that I skipped 2 weeks? No, wait. Whatever... That's what you get when you lose all your week's neurons. Which means that I need to go back in time twice as far and put my memory through a lot of effort. To tell you the truth, I don't even know where to start. Training Peaks to the rescue!

Swim

Two weeks ago on Tuesday, I did a 3000m swim which called for 20x100m on 2:30 main set. It hurt so much, I don't even want to talk about it. The hardest swim I've ever done until now, period. I managed to finish it all, but I wasn't quite sure on what planet I was at the end of it. Needless to say, two days later I was so tired that I put on my pull buoy and swam for 45min straight, all with flip turns so I can keep up with the kids in my lane. I was supposed to do this swim on Sunday, but it felt more appropriate for Thursday. On Sunday, I was still feeling pooped, that I decided to swing it and do whatever my body was in mood for. I swam 100m free, then another 100m, then 300m with my pull buoy, and decided to repeat the same pattern until I ran out of time. I managed to fit in 4 repeats for a total of 2000m. Matched my swim quota for the week, so that was success in my books.

This past week, it was a different story. Tuesday's swim didn't happen. But on Thursday I went to masters with the tri group and had a nice 2000m swim with a lot of 50s, 100s and 200s. I didn't think I could pull it off, but stamina showed up and got me through it just fine. I even swam my fastest pull/paddles splits - how?? Must have been the 10h sleep...
I have no idea what I'm going to do tomorrow, but there are enough missed swims to choose from. Anything that fits within 1h will do I suppose.

Bike

I had a few good rides as well, no complaints here. I only missed one workout, last Wednesday, when I pretty much hit the wall. I came back from work and fell asleep on the couch. Decided to call it a night and go to bed at 7:45pm. I needed it really badly and I'm glad that I listened to my body. I could feel that everything was falling apart, starting with my mental. 
Below are the most exciting rides that I've done.

This one was made by hubbs with instructions from coach. I called it One Leg drills and Two Leg Spins (100rpm). Visually, quite exciting. Pure poetry. I managed to keep my calm and pedal on, what a miracle. Last spin looks almost like a scream though.
The only other ride worth sharing was my 2h45 ride today, Conness. Trainer Road didn't crash like the week before, yay! I did it all in my new Coeur Sports kit which I received yesterday. I was really curious about the magic chamois and whether my bottom was going to complain. Another miracle, I swear. Last week I had a lot of pain in my bike shorts with triple diaper-like padding, but this time, nada!! No pain whatsoever, how is it possible? The people at Coeur should better patent this one because they've got a winner!!
The ride was easy peasy. It wasn't too difficult to follow directions since the intervals were quite long, and I killed the boredom watching "Zoolander". Can you believe that I waited 13 years to see it? I still had a megawatt smile at the end of it (the workout, not the movie).
If you are wondering what a gratuitous view of my belly is doing here, this is my own #keepingitreal moment. The kit fits wonderfully, but I still have a muffin top to deal with. Hopefully 5 months from now I won't have to suck it in until I pass out while approaching photographers on the course of Ironman Mt. Tremblant.

Run

So far, I didn't miss any of the runs! They all have been 8km or more, with the long ones at 15km. Still doing them on the treadmill, sorry. But the early ones in the week were "hilly" where I got to play with both speed and incline on the treadmill, while the mid-week ones introduced 1min accelerations to 10km pace or faster. I'm glad they are not boring me to death. Speaking of which, I need another movie to watch during my long run tomorrow. Last week I watched "Food Inc." and it was rather upsetting at times. No, I didn't cry, but it got me mad. I'll never look at a piece of meat the same way again.

Here's another piece of worthy news. I bought new shoes!! I joined Kona winner Frederik Van Lierde, Mary Beth Ellis and Caroline Steffen in wearing On running shoes. I had NO idea they even existed until I walked into the Running Free store and tried them on. And NO, I could not put them down and walk away. Very rarely I find a shoe that marries my foot (both of them actually :-)) so wonderfully and this is one of them. I was looking for a shoe to do my long runs in while I rebuild enough calf strength to go back to my K Swiss K-Onas, since there is a new Ironman branded pair at home waiting for me to run in at #IMMT. I chose the Cloudsurfer model and so far, amazeballs! Not a single blister, no pain, even my knees seem happier lately. I also run a tad faster for the same level of effort. They are definitely springy and they almost feel like propelling me a little quicker.
Or maybe it's all in my head and I already imagine myself winning Kona in them. On folks, call me now!

In a nutshell

I had such a hectic schedule between office work, workouts, basketball games, long drives in the snow, parties, corporate ping pong tournaments (I move onto round two in doubles, yay!), endless meetings, stress to the max, that I ended crashing really hard and had to skip two workouts in a row. Not the end of the world, since I got back my sanity and some extra hours of sleep, but there were times when I questioned my ability to train for this Ironman. I told myself that if I'm crashing with 10h worth of workouts, what will happen when I'll hit 16-18? Thankfully the funk didn't last, but it's a little seed of doubt that I need to watch closely not to sprout.

I'll leave you with a few more pictures, so you can see what I've been talking about.
We drove for hours in this. 
More snow!! MAKE IT STOP!!!
NOT my bike. Phew.
We like basketball. At least the Raptors win every so often.
100 points = free pizza for everyone!
We skipped the pizza this time, but we went to Pizza Hut later in the week. We had the super thin crust pizza with veggies and a greek salad.
In case you were wondering...
The sad face of our sidewalks. Anyone have skates?
You could call this a slip and slide, alright!
You can understand why I keep my runs inside. No sidewalks, no fun! I refuse to dodge cars.
One last sweaty smile for the road, with boob crack as a bonus! See you next week!!

4 comments:

  1. Solid couple weeks, lady… well done! 20 x 100 is a TOUGH workout… way to power through. I've done that one many times; trust me, it does get easier :) And, you look great in your Coeur kit! Our sidewalks in Minnesota look similar, which is why I've also been stuck on the 'mill. Keep up the hard work!

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  2. Great couple of weeks of training. It's been a tough winter for training for all kinds of reasons! Spring can't come soon enough.

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  3. Thank you girls, I always appreciate your comments. xoxo

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  4. I love the keep it real campaign.....but you so do not have a muffin top! I know lots of women who would kill for that stomach. And you are cute as a button, so bonus! Keep up the great training! You are so going to kill the IM!

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