IM Canada: Basebuilding Week 2 - Chen's version (i.e., elevation is not my friend)

Posted by Chen

I should really be working right now, but naturally, this blog post takes precedence. I'd say I did a much better job of balancing all three sports in basebuilding week 2, with 3 swims, 3 bikes, and 4 runs.

Things to note from this week:

1) A work event Tuesday night made it difficult for me to wake up for my Wednesday morning workout, so I made the genius decision to do both workouts in the evening. For future reference, riding the trainer for an hour immediately prior to a track workout will only result in low blood sugar and heavy legs. Really insightful, I know.

2) I tried swimming in a 50-meter lap lane pool for the first time on Thursday, and I LOVED it. I think a lot of my anxiety while swimming stems from me anticipating the next turnaround, so reducing those turns and allowing myself to get into a rhythm was super helpful. I was able to swim faster with less effort, which is my whole goal for the IM swim. Well, aside from not drowning.

3) I spent the weekend up in Tahoe, which was lovely, but it made for some challenging training. I managed to find the one community pool open year-round in Truckee, which was great, except it seemed that all of Truckee wanted to swim on Saturday morning as well. I’m still not confident enough in my swimming to not freak out during circle swimming, and because lanes weren’t divided by speed, I just happened to hop in a lane with someone who was basically Rachel’s level (for those of you who aren’t aware, Rachel is f-ing FAST). This dude was lapping me over and over, and I just felt like I was getting in his way the whole time. Womp womp.

4) After the circle swim from hell, I headed back to our rental house in Incline Village to hop on the bike. Because I still don’t trust myself to go on solo rides, my long ride this weekend consisted of a 3-hour spin on the trainer. Mental training: check.

My view for three hours. Thankful for the random murder mystery channel I found.

5) On Sunday, I headed out for my long run along Tahoe Blvd, which turned out to be a death trap of blind turns and shoulders that were approximately 6 inches wide. Combine that with 6200-6400 feet of elevation and a moderate hangover, and you have mental training, round 2.

The views sure were lovely, but I was too busy sucking wind and wondering whether I was about to vomit

Basebuilding Week 2 Recap:

Monday: 

• PM: 75-minute trainer ride with fast spin and big gear intervals

Tuesday:

• AM: Swimming 2100 yards, practicing flip turns in the deep end (the shallow end was 3 feet deep, which I wasn’t quite ready for that day)
• PM: Running a 4.1 mile loop through Twin Peaks, which included ~400 feet of climbing in the first mile and a sweet 11:19 pace for that stretch. Overall average pace of 9:13.

Wednesday: 

• PM: 60-minute trainer ride with fast spin intervals
• PM: Ladder workout at the track: 200/400/600/800/800/600/400/200m in 0:47, 1:34, 2:27, 3:18, 3:16, 2:26, 1:35, 0:45. Total run: 8.15 miles

Thursday: 

• AM: Swimming 2125 yards, practicing flip turns in the deep end AND the shallow end (those were a bit dicier). Then I switched to the 50m pool for the remaining 800m, which was amazeballs.
• PM: Quick 3 mile run with my company’s running club (average pace: 7:50)

Friday:

• Rest (traveling up to Tahoe)

Saturday: 

• AM: Swimming 1800 yards in Truckee. Circle swim from hell, though I did swim faster than normal thanks to the extra pressure. Bonus.
• PM: 3-hour trainer ride with fast spin and big gear intervals. 

Sunday: 

• PM: 16.1 mile run at elevation and with hangover. 9:11 average pace. Ouch.

Looking forward to a nice cutback week this week (and a weekend in VegasVEGAS with the blog ladies)!