Rachel's IM Canada training: week 14 (of 24)

Posted by Rachel

Time flies! This Ironman just keeps getting closer and closer. This was a pretty good week, and I kept a positive mental attitude for all the biking (which was my goal!) Tomorrow I'm headed off on a one-day business trip to Santa Barbara, and I'm not actually sure if I'm prepared for it but I do know that I have all of my running things. Priorities, you know?

Here's a recap of my week 14:

Monday
am- 5000 yard swim. I'm not really getting any faster with more swimming but I am feeling stronger at the end of 5k, which is definitely progress! My last 500 at the end of the workout was 6:35, which means I wasn't dying.
pm- Trainer Road/Owl (60 min trainer ride). I like Owl the day after a long run to get a little bit of speed and threshold, but nothing crazy.

Tuesday
am- 3000 yard easy "bonus" extra swim, lots of pulling
pm- 9 mile run (7:35) w/ 4 x {1.5 miles tempo (7:17) + 0.5 mile recovery}

Wednesday
29.7 mile bike commute. It was headwindy and I'll admit I didn't give a whole lot of effort here. 13.2 mph/2400 ft climbing.

Thursday
am- showed up late to spin class- 12 miles/33 min + 15 min core class
pm- 6.5 mile run (8:30)

Friday
master's swim practice 4100 yards

Saturday
Epic Oakland to Mt. Diablo round trip. 90.5 miles biking, 9500 feet of climbing, 12.0 mph. Thanks to my training buddies, we got some great pics at the top! Matt and Katie have the group ones :)

It was good to practice hill pacing knowing that there was significant climbing throughout the ride. I did pretty well on fueling but did take Chen up on her offer to buy me a giant Snickers bar at our emergency gas station rest stop, bringing my calorie intake to about 1900 for the ride. I wonder if we're the only people who have ever looked at the nutrition facts for a snickers bar and been disappointed that it "only" has 220 cal/serving. I feel better about the ride in Whistler after having finished this.

Sunday
In the morning we volunteered for the "Tilden Tough Ten", and got a scenic but freezing cold spot right near the eucalyptus grove.

Afterward, I agreed to a trail run with Travers. I had forgotten (but now I remember) that I HATE trail running! On the way down, I had to walk a quarter mile section because it was steep, hole-y, and I was worried about falling off the side of a cliff. Then my legs were itchy from going through the grass. Then we passed a sign that said "warning- there are ticks out here"... no big deal. I suppose the redeeming quality of trail runs is the beautiful views. This is true, although it turns out if I take my eyes off the ground to appreciate the views for a split second, I fall flat on my face (like I did at mile 11.5). Luckily, I was so mad about it that I charged up the tough hill that was the last mile and ended up finishing a 12.5 mile trail run with 1395 feet of climbing in 9:18 pace. Great views and good training, but I won't be doing it again. Maybe for a hike instead.

And it wouldn't be a week of IM training without way overeating (at least our dinner was healthy). Time to watch the LAST episode ever of Mad Men!

Volunteering with a view (and weekend workouts)

Posted by Rachel

To avoid boring everyone, I won't go into too much detail about what a productive weekend I had. I'll just show some pictures as a quick update on my weekend workouts and miscellaneous.

Yesterday (Saturday) we went on a 40ish mile bike ride in the East Bay hills. Traffic was minimal and the views were great. I really enjoyed the ride, especially compared to our near death experience on the peninsula a couple weeks ago.

Up in the hills of Tilden Park, wearing 3 different shades of blue

The reason we ride- steak sandwich and iced chai at Stags. Oh yeah, and to train for our future Ironman.

 

Then, this morning the Ibergs and I wanted to get a run in before our volunteering time slot, so we started running at 5:30 am (yes, you saw that right.... on a weekend) to complete a hilly 9 miler before our 7:15 am assignment. The run went pretty well and I actually suggested we come back and double the route for a long run sometime. I'm not really sure what has happened to me, but now that I'm putting that into writing it sounds like a terrible idea. Anyway, then we got a water stop near some great views. 

 

View over Orinda and the reservoirs

Good morning, SF bay

This was my first time working water and it was a little bit stressful, especially when the fastest guys were coming by. Who knew they would go at the water with such force? Otherwise it was fun cheering and hydrating people. 

To round out this multi-sport post, I'll leave you with a picture of me open water swimming (kind of).

 

 Why am I including this picture? Well, we finally got those crappy disposable under water camera photos from our honeymoon developed (yes, it was in November 2012) so I figured I'd throw in a swimming pic for good measure. My favorite sport has been highly underrepresented in my blog posts, anyway. To leave you with a cliff hanger, I found a new home for my old bike. More on that later!

Volunteer Report: Western Pacific Marathon, Half, 10K and 5

Posted by Katie

Speaking of volunteering… Matt and I volunteered at an aid station for the Western Pacific races put on by Brazen Racing on Saturday. I have always looked into Brazen races, they do so many cool trail races in the east bay but yesterday was my first event! I have to say, I was impressed by their aid stations and their appreciation for volunteers, I will definitely run one of their races and volunteer again.

http://www.brazenracing.com/westernpacific.html

This race is in Fremont, so we absolutely felt we should either run or volunteer. With a marathon coming up in 3 weeks, volunteering seemed like the more logical choice. We were situated at aid station #2 so we were at the 10K turnaround and the half and full marathon ran past us and then turned around to run past us again. I thought this might lead to a crazy rush of people at the water stop, but the way they staggered the start meant the flow of runners was pretty constant, but never over whelming. When I run a race, I expect to see water, some type of sports drink, and maybe Gu. Brazen races really goes above and beyond in aid station stocking, three flavors of gu, and TONS of food  basically what I would expect in an ultra (see photo).

Aid station goodies

The other sweet thing is the volunteer swag. Volunteers are given a tech shirt and sandwiches for lunch. In addition depending on how long of a shift you volunteer for, you are given a full or partial credit for a future Brazen race! Sweet!

In other news the big 20 mile long run was today and it went... um, good and bad? The first 9 went perfectly, the next 11 were a huge struggle. Hopefully the taper helps. 

-Katie