IM Canada- base building week #3: late entry + VEGAS

Posted by Rachel

Last week was a "step back" week so I've opted not to post all of my workouts, but trust that I am very good at stepping back. I'll also randomly interject pictures from the girl bloggers' trip to Vegas, since surviving that was the main accomplishment of the week. I remember a time in a my life when I could drink more than two nights consecutively, but this is not that time.

We've all run multiple marathons, but we can't manage to walk or ride escalators in heels. Oh yeah, and we like to keep it classy by hanging out in the beer fridge at Walgreens.

When you're in Vegas but you can't handle having even one more drink, what do you do? The Mandalay Bay aquarium, of course. 

Katie wanted to try to gamble a small amount just for the Vegas experience. I have never played any Vegas game without someone who knows what they are doing by my side (my Dad or Travers). I already know from past experience (with my Dad's money) that I suck at roulette so we went 'balls out' and each put $20 on the Black Jack table, fully prepared to lose it all. In reality, the opposite happened- I came out with $16 more than I started, and Katie with $20. We are the champions of Vegas!!

We bought a drink at the chandelier with our massive winnings.

I suppose I should talk about the Ironman training now, given the blog name. Instead of listing all my workouts, I'll just give an example of a 'good' and a 'needs improvement'.

What was good about my training last week? On Thursday evening I did a 7 mile run with 4 miles at tempo pace and averaged 7:20 for the tempo with a "comfortably strong" approach rather than a "run until you die" approach. That was a better pace than expected for the effort, which is a pleasant and welcome surprise in any workout. 

What could have used improvement? My swim Monday, the day after the previous week's 16 miler, was THE laziest swim I've had in a long time. It's not even that I couldn't move faster, I just lacked all motivation to do so. But since swimming is the least of my IM concerns, I just coasted through the 2400 yards and picked it back up with a tougher workout again Thursday morning (pre- tempo run).

We had an awesome beautiful ride in Red Rock outside of Vegas. Sandwiched in between two trips to Dunkin Donuts, of course. 

(caption not needed!)

This week it's back to hard training, although I'm still recovering from the Vegas weekend where my hours of sleep were half of the amount I would have liked them to be. Then again, at least we got great food while we were there! (Shake Shack meal not shown- devoured too quickly.)

A magical swim

Posted by Chen

Quick post to tell you about the amazing swim I had this morning!

A few things you need to know in order to understand why this particular swim was so magical:

• As I mentioned in my last post, my swims always start out as if I’m taking my first strokes ever, and it takes me about 10 laps to remember that I do, in fact, know how to stay afloat
• Although I consider myself to have a solid cardio base (25 marathons have to be good for SOMEthing), I still have a habit of stopping every other lap or so to catch my breath. Deep down, I’ve known this was mostly mental, but I didn’t prove it to myself until today.
• I have an irrational fear of running out of air (though in my mind, this fear is still quite rational), and I often speed up my turnover as a result to get to my next breath, which doesn’t allow me to streamline and glide through the water. This rapid turnover also often results in sinking hips and my favorite feeling of impending drowning, which is always really comforting.

I didn’t have high expectations going into my swim this morning, as my swim yesterday didn’t go quite as smoothly as I’d hoped after feeling so strong last week (though I did cross the 2-mile mark for the first time ever!). To add further fuel to the fire, when I showed up to the pool, every lane was taken, meaning I had to be THAT PERSON who sheepishly had to ask a dude if we could split his lane. Luckily, he was super nice and had already moved over to one side as soon as he saw me waiting. He also finished up almost immediately after I got in, so that was a bonus.

Anyway, I didn’t intend to do any long sets today, but within my first lap, it was as if everything I’ve been learning and practicing over the last few weeks instantly came together, and I was moving through the water almost effortlessly. I let myself take long strokes and didn’t panic about staying underwater for so long, which kept my hips high and the rest of my body streamlined.

I felt so comfortable that I swam 10 continuous laps, or 500 yards, as my warm-up. I NEVER swim 10 continuous laps – before today, even 5 laps seemed super long. And because it didn’t feel like I was pushing that hard, I was surprised when I popped up at the end of the set and saw 9:51 on my watch. Yes, that’s terribly slow if you’re a real swimmer, but when I compare that to the 500 I did over Xmas break in 11:54, I cut over 2 minutes off my time!

After wiping the $h!t-eating grin off my face, I proceeded to do my kick and pull drills and managed to do another 2 x 500, getting even faster with each set.  My overall workout looked as follows:

• 500 continuous (9:51)
• 250 kick (5:34)
• 250 pull (5:05)
• 500 continuous (9:44)
• 250 kick (5:46)
• 250 pull (5:10)
• 500 continuous (9:43)
• 250 paddles (5:04)
• 5x50 (0:51, 0:53, 0:51, 0:51, 0:50)

Times aside, the real reason this swim was so significant was that it was honestly the first time that I truly believed I might actually be able to survive my 1.2 mile swim in April and the 2.4 miles in July. Granted, I’ll have to multiply that 500 set by 4.2 and 8.4, respectively, but 500 is amazeballs for now.

Happy Wednesday!

IM Canada: Basebuilding Week 3 – Chen’s version (i.e., “Those girls look like they’re going horseback riding”)

Posted by Chen

Horseback riding – that’s what someone in the elevator whispered when they saw us get in as we were on our way to go biking. It seems patrons of Vegas get their athletic activities confused.

I would classify this weekend as one of ridiculous extremes. Our 48 hours in Sin City had us toggling back and forth between training activities and what can only be classified as prolonged, excessive drinking, and it was awesome. Some highlights included:

• Staying up until 4am our first night there, which was approximately 7 hours past our typical bedtime
• Waking up at 10am the next morning to head to Red Rock Canyon, where we rented bikes and did a 24-mile loop with some amazing views. We also went to Dunkin’ twice during that excursion, because Dunkin’.
• Eating Shake Shack for dinner. Mmmmm Shake Shack.
• Touring the strip with drinks in hand that night for approximately 8 hours, including a pitstop at Hakkasan, where we definitively confirmed that we are far too old for the clubbing scene. We’ll stick to our sweatpants and wine bottles, thanks. That said, it was comical to observe, and a big shout out goes to Rachel’s sister for hooking us up and getting us in for free with free drinks! 
• Running 10 miles through the Clark County Wetlands Preserve this morning. Beautiful, though way too hot for us Bay Area folk who can’t handle anything outside of 55-65 degrees

Cabo Wabo drinks, consumed way past our bedtime

Red Rock Canyon

I've seen the Bellagio fountain show like 10 times now, but I'm still a sucker for it

Delicious seafood noodle soup, consumed post-run

On the training front, this week was all about the swim. Since it was a cutback week, I only biked twice and ran three times, but I swam four times for a total of 11,185 yards. For me, putting in this amount of yardage was much less about gaining fitness and speed, and much more about gaining comfort and familiarity with the water. I kid you not when I say I still have laps where I fear I might not make it to the other side of the pool.

I know for people who grew up swimming, breathing while swimming is probably just as comfortable as breathing while out for a leisurely stroll. For me, though, I’m still getting used to the fact that I can’t breathe exactly when I want to, which often leads to mental images of me drowning, which in turn leads to poor form, sinking hips, and major panic. It seems that every swim I do, my first 10 laps or so are all wonky and borderline panicky, but by the end of each session, I’m far more comfortable and streamlined. Which leads me to believe that I just need to practice, practice, and practice some more until it becomes second nature. So that’s the plan.

The good news is that I can already see considerable gains from just being in the water more and also from executing the form tips that my friend Julie gave me a couple weeks ago. When I first hopped back in the pool last year after decades of not swimming at all, my pace was generally 1:05 per lap (50 yards), maybe 58-60 seconds if I tried REALLY hard. But this week, I got my pace down to 50 seconds per lap for a 50, about 55 seconds per lap for a 100, and 58 seconds per lap for a 250, which I consider a big win (swimmers – don’t laugh)!

More important than the times, though, was that all of those faster laps this week actually felt a lot more effortless than any of my laps last year, thanks to being more streamlined and getting the most out of each stroke I took. Now, I obviously still have a LONG way to go, but I’m excited to monitor my progress over the next few months – it’s fun to learn something new again!

I don’t have anything noteworthy to report on the biking front (since I barely did it this week), but I was happy with my tempo run at the track on Wednesday night. That was actually my third workout of the day, having swum 3250 yards (longest swim ever!) and biked 65 minutes with intervals that same morning. I obviously wasn’t expecting much speed to come out of my legs after those workouts, but I surprised myself with 5 tempo at 7:34, 7:32, 7:30, 7:22, 7:10. Given that I hadn’t done a tempo run since November, I was pretty happy with those results.

This coming week, I’ll continue to spend time in the water while also gearing up for a hella hilly 60-mile ride on Saturday and an 18-mile run on Sunday that will include the Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon. I’m going to need a lot of Chipotle.

Basebuilding Week 3 Recap:

Monday: 

• Rest (traveling back from Tahoe)

Tuesday: 

• AM: Swimming 2500 yards, including kick and pull drills, 5x100 in 2:01, 2:01, 2:01, 1:58, 1:58, and 5x50 (0:55-0:54 each)

Wednesday: 

• AM: Swimming 3250 yards, including kick and pull drills, 5x100 in 1:57, 1:59, 2:00, 1:57, 1:57, 10x50 (average 0:55.6)
• AM: Stationary biking with resistance intervals
• PM: Tempo at track: 8.55 miles total with 5 tempo @ 7:34, 7:32, 7:30, 7:22, 7:10

Thursday: 

• AM: Swimming 2435 yards (mostly in the 50m pool), including kick and pull drills, 4x100m (2:05 each), 5x50 (0:56-0:53)

Friday: 

• AM: Swimming 3000 yards, including kick and pull drills, 5x100 in 1:57, 1:59, 1:55, 1:52, 1:51 (fastest ever!), 10x50 (0:53-0:50, average 0:51, again, fastest ever!), and a continuous 250 (which is long for me, ha) in 4:51. I looked at some old data and saw that I swam a 250 back over Thanksgiving in 5:40, so I’d say I’m making progress! I also used the swim paddles for the first time, and I think they’ll really help me strengthen my pull and force me to focus on finishing out my stroke (which is probably my biggest issue right now. Self-diagnosed, of course).
• PM: Running 7.1 miles mostly easy, except for the stretch where I thought a random runner dude was following me, and I started running for my life (8:38 average pace)

Saturday: 

• PM: Biking 24 miles through Red Rock Canyon

Sunday: 

• AM: Running 10 miles through the Clark County Wetlands Preserves (8:50 average pace)

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)!

IM Canada- base building week #2

Posted by Rachel

This was another fun base building week. Work got a little bit long a couple of the days this week and slightly interfered with my workouts, and I'm glad to have been in a base building phase rather than in rigorous training. But, it was a good reminder that sometimes life happens and not doing every single planned workout exactly how I want to surely isn't going ruin 6 months of consistent training.

Here's the recap:

Monday: am-  3500 yard swim (super hard long set, a self-inflicted suffering); pm- 50 min spin on the trainer at home (late meeting conflicted with my usual spin class) + 15 min P90X ab ripper

Tuesday: track workout (6.1 miles total) with 3 x broken 1600 (600 hard-100ez-400 hard-100ez-600 hard)

Wednesday: 60 min spin

Thursday: am- 45 min weights + core; pm- 5 mi easy run (would've liked to do more, but had a last minute work dinner to go to after a long day of meetings)

Friday: 3300 yard master's swim practice

Saturday: 34 mile bike ride with ~3200 ft climbing

Sunday: 16 mile run 

The bad- My legs were pretty dead at the end of last weekend, so my Monday and Tuesday workouts proved extremely difficult. By the time Wednesday rolled around they were back to normal.

The good- 22 days ago, my longest run in a long time was 8 miles. Earlier today, my legs let me run 16 fairly easily at an 8:33 pace. I'm so happy they were cooperative!

 I found a use for my aero bars!

 What's good after a 16 mile run? A party with a taco truck and a huge Pats victory!

So what's next? Well, in the title I say that this is base building week 2, but there is technically a week 0 that I didn't report on. That means I've been building for 3 weeks and it's time for a break. And that break will come in the form of VEGAS next weekend, as well as some shorter workouts during the week. WOO VEGAS!

Basebuilding Fun

 Posted by Matt

For me, the winter's basebuilding is going to be all about fun training. The new year started out pretty good. Great Surfing session (I think that's a good substitution for a swim, right?) on New Year's day followed by a great ski tour (definitely a good substitution for a run), a fun day at Kirkwood (a halfway decent quad workout), and a "not-so-great but at least we got a work out in" ski tour, where we decided to start a bit too low and there really wasn't enough snow. But then I got sick and essentially missed the entire next week of doing anything at all. Being sick did help me realize why I sign up for things like this Ironman - each day of not working out made me more and more grumpy. Luckily, I'm back in a better health (and mood) this weekend, and I got a solid weekend of workouts in - 2 more days surfing, a solid night time trail run on the coast and beach, a quick ab workout, and a "warm-up" swim session at the local pool. We moved recently and discovered 2 public pools (and an ocean!) with great hours within a 10 minute drive from our new location - so that was a great find - no excuses for not getting swimming now! On top of all that, the Pats won a fantastic game against the Ravens and are onto the AFC championship! Not a bad weekend at all.

Kona's not impressed with the view of Lake Tahoe from the top of Powerderhouse.

IM Canada: Basebuilding Week 1 – Chen’s version (i.e., You mean I have to stop running as much?)

Posted by Chen

I like Rachel’s idea of having a training diary of sorts to look back on in a few months, so I’m jumping on the weekly recap bandwagon.

Week 1 of basebuilding had its fair share of struggles, but luckily it also came with some successes.

Some struggles:

1) Being a runner at heart, I found it somewhat difficult to let go of my running-a-minimum-of-five-times-per-week habit. Naturally, I ran five times this week, resulting in a weekend long ride for which my legs were already gassed at the start. Not a good feeling when I knew I had thousands of feet of climbing ahead of me.

2) I also failed to fuel properly for the ride, eating only 320 calories over the nearly four hour adventure. They say you’re supposed to eat 250+ calories PER HOUR during the Ironman ride, so I’d say I fell just a tad short. I also dealt with some SERIOUS arm / shoulder pain thanks to the fact that I still tense up and grip my brakes with all my might. At one point, the pain became so severe that I had to pull over and stretch my shoulders out for a few minutes. Note to self: Work on that.

3) On the swimming front, I’m struggling to find a pool that seems to be open this month. Evidently, January is when all SF pools close down for maintenance. It makes sense, since it’s probably the month during which the fewest people want to swim in a given year, but it’s really been cramping my style. Brandon and I showed up to two different pools this week, only to be denied access. Sad face frown.

Some successes:

1) Despite my legs being gassed at the start of our long ride yesterday, I managed to not die and completed the 50-mile ride (though Rachel and Travers both kicked my ass and had to wait for me at every turn. Thanks, guys!). The climbing was painful, but it was also only my tenth bike ride ever, so I should probably cut myself some slack :P.

2) I signed up for the Hot Chocolate 15K a while back, not realizing that I would be riding 50 hella hilly miles the day before. Therefore, I expected the race this morning to feel like death, especially since I was adding 5+ miles before the start in order to hit 14 for the day. My warm-up was sluggish as expected, but I surprised myself and was able to average ~8:07 pace for the race itself. And it didn’t feel half bad!

3) After the race, Brandon and I met up with my friend Julie, who’s a super good swimmer, for a lesson. She watched us swim and gave us a bunch of tips for how to improve our freestyle form, all of which were really helpful. What I was most excited to learn, though, was HOW TO DO A FLIP TURN. OMG. I tried learning flip turns back when I swam between the ages of ~5-10, and it was hopeless. I would always end up in the lane next to mine, and eventually the teachers gave up on me.

So when Julie promised me that we’d be flip-turning by the end of our hour-long session, I had my doubts. But she wasn’t lying! Julie taught us step by step, having us practice each one before we moved onto the next. At the end, we strung everything together, and voila! Flip turn completed! Of course, I will need to practice these things over and over and over, but I’m super excited that I finally know the right steps to take. If you’re reading this, thanks, Julie!

So, I definitely learned some valuable lessons this week that I will carry forward in my training. Namely, practice the drills / turns that I learned today until I finally have a swimming form that somewhat resembles efficiency, eat EVERYTHING, and stop running so g*ddamn much.

Basebuilding Week 1 Recap:

Monday: Rest (tried to go swimming, but the pool was closed. Came home dejected and just ate dinner instead. Womp womp).

Tuesday: Track - 8x400m tempo, 4x400m interval - 1:44, 1:46, 1:43, 1:42, 1:43, 1:43, 1:42, 1:42, 1:36, 1:37, 1:35, 1:33. Tempo felt great. Interval – not so much. I have work to do, but this is a start!

Wednesday: AM: Easy run (4.3 miles, no time kept); PM: 65-minute trainer ride with fast spin intervals. This kicked my ass and probably also contributed to my leg fatigue by Saturday.

Thursday: Easy run (5.4 miles, no time kept)

Friday: AM: Fartlek run (7.4 miles, ~8:09 average pace); PM: Swimming 1400 yards (We tried to go to one pool only to be denied again. So we each paid $20 to swim at the Koret Center at USF, which is amazing, but certainly not worth $20/day)

Saturday: Long ride with Rachel and Travers - 50.2 miles with 3967 feet of climbing

Sunday: AM: 5.55 mile warm-up (~8:53 pace); Hot Chocolate 15K (9.36 miles in 1:15:54, or ~8:07 pace); PM: Swimming form drills and flip turn lesson

Looking forward to week 2!

IM Canada- base building week #1 + the "dark horse"

Posted by Rachel

I'm not sure how many details of my training I'm really going to include on a regular basis, mostly because I don't know if anyone cares to read them. But recently I've been stalking some blogs where the authors did outline their weekly training and I kind of liked it, so I'll list what I did this week.

Mon: am- endurance swim (long sets, 3100); pm- spin class (45 min)  + core class (30 min)
Tue: 7 mile run w/3 tempo
Wed: 45 min spin class
Thur: am- strength + core (45 min); pm- 6 mile run
Fri: master's swim practice (short sets, 3300)
Sat: 50.2 mile bike w/ 3960 ft
Sun: 14 mi run

The week went pretty well and I'm looking forward to this training. Chen had a brilliant idea after we survived the bike ride: eat a LOT.

 Brussels sprouts salad already eaten. Guess how many people all this food was for :)

Now- to the "dark horse". No, not Katie Perry. I found my first unanticipated challenge of winter IM training. Because California is absolutely amazing, it's not snow, ice or cold. It's my January - March seasonal allergy. I've had it EVERY year since I moved to the bay, and I assume it's pine or cedar or some winter tree but I never got it tested. Allegra works fine unless I do something stupid, such as intentionally breathe in the allergens for hours on end. The allergy tips say to "exercise indoors", but what would you do- bike 4 hours on a trainer, or bike on roads that wind through this:

The answer is pretty clear. I'll just have to suck it up, and preferably not go out in public the evening of a long bike ride. Time for some foam rolling and Mad Men.

(Not) back at it

Posted by Katie

I don't have a training plan in place for the Ironman... and I have on good authority that Matt does not either. It's not that I haven't thought about it but more that I just have no idea where to start... I loved my half-iron plan... can I just double that? Unclear.

I do have this vague elephant in the room feeling like I should be doing something....

Seen on our drive last week... subtle... very subtle.

My other excuse is that my lower back is still somehow a total disaster from my injury in September. Mine is a classic story of how NOT to recover from an injury, here is what I did:

1.  Have a massive fall trail running
2.  Take exactly 1 day off and then go right back to half-iron training/tapering
3.  Have some clear signs that something is no right on a run, swim the next day hard anyway
4. Barely stumble back to the car post swim
5. Carry on and do a half-ironman anyway
6. Run half marathon harder than intended
7. Smarten up and decide NOT to do CIM* (my only smart move)
8. Move apartments and completely trash any recovery of back in the process
9. Go to the doctors and told pain killers and rest...
10. Do nothing for 1 month
11.  Try to run 4 miles.. feel terrible, continue doing nothing
12. Ski hard on icy conditions, realize that everything hurts
13. FINALLY smarten up and book massages/PT appointments/all the things

 I have been really un-smart about this whole thing that really should have been long since healed and wasn't even a major injury in the first place. So instead of base building I am crankily sitting on the couch. The good news is I found an awesome physical therapist whose hobbies include... wait for it... "swimming, biking, running and alpine skiing".  This person did not even bat an eyelash when I said I was doing an Ironman in July, his first question was "Cool! Which one?". I've only had one evaluation appointment so far but I am really hopeful. So far the theory is that a nerve root in my lumbar spine area is being pressed causing pain and left side weakness. It was crazy how week my toe strength was on the left side (implicates the L4 vertebrae)... that explains so much about my telemark ski turns on the left side also :P 

Stock Xray picture... I don't think HIPAA 

I had an xray last week, PT and a massage coming up this week... here's to 2015 getting healthy!

Ironman training kickoff weekend in Sonoma

Posted by Rachel

I have a few 2015 "resolutions" that are relevant to this blog:
-make a blog post once per week (on average)
-log all of my activities in Garmin for easier following
-get in shape for an Ironman

NYE-  I think I basically got a bowling PR. My 2nd time in triple digits: 104!

 Happy 2015!

In the spirit of resolutions 1 and 3 above, here is a blog post about IM training kickoff!

At first I thought I'd do a 24 week training plan, starting in February. After I put together the plan, I realized that I would've been ready to get right into it... in August. The disadvantage of having fat drunk (November + December) is that you're not really in shape at all. So I'm beginning IM training now with base building to get back into shape.

On Saturday we did a 36 mile ride in Sonoma. The temp was < 40 degrees when we started and it turns out that is COLD for biking. Really, really cold. But this being California, it warmed up quickly and all of the miles after mile 5 were really pleasant. The scenery was beautiful and we followed the ride with exercising our livers.

We're training hard here, really!

Then Sunday morning I ran a 12 miler with Chen (and part with Sandi! yay for injury recovery!), who is in WAY better running shape than me. I haven't run more than 10 since October and my December max was 8, so I was slightly concerned about finishing. Luckily once the wine hangover passed at mile 8 it was smooth sailing. Too bad all Ironman training won't be this fun :)