Rachel's IM Canada training: week 17 (of 24)

Posted by Rachel

Throughout this IM training I've definitely been tired/fatigued and had some pretty bad workouts, but this is the first week where I felt like I literally got my ass kicked. Unfortunately it's not time to taper yet, so I'll have to suck it up and keep training I guess. Here's is a recap of my training week, with stories interspersed.

Monday
am- 4200 yard swim. I decided to do a "benchmark" workout of 20 x 100 on 1:30. I had read that if you can come in around 1:20, you are possibly capable of a sub-1 hr IM swim. I came in on 1:14-1:18 for all of them and the set felt great. Have I mentioned that swimming is the best tri sport?
pm- Trainer Road- Cartwright (60 min/ avg pace 16.1 mph). This bike workout felt good, too!

Tuesday
9 mile run (7:39 average)- with 4 one mile road repeats (6:57, 6:50, 6:49, 6:47). This didn't feel as good as previous hard runs, but I'm glad I forced myself to crank out 4 hard miles.

Wednesday
Bike commute- 29.7 miles, 13.4 mph (giant headwind and 2400 ft climbing, as usual).
Wednesday was a stressful day at work as a bunch of people got laid off out of nowhere. So I ended up going out to the bar with some people from work after my ride. I can safely say this is the first time (and hopefully the last) I've had vodka on a weeknight during IM training.

Thursday
am- 3400 yard swim (in hindsight, I may have swam a little too hard given the upcoming two mile race Saturday...but oh well.). Either way, I was relieved to not have a hangover from Wednesday's shenanigans. Sure, I didn't drink much, but these days it doesn't take much!
pm- Trainer Road- 50 min workout Freel @ 85% intensity. It was during this workout that I was having major problems with my gearing and it turned out to be my derailleur in the front. I know I've ranted about biking before, but having a sport be so dependent on equipment really irritates me. Luckily the bike shop was able to take it Friday and fix it up

Friday
am- 5.5 mile run, no watch. I would have liked for this to be 7 miles, but my body doesn't acclimate to running 3 min after rolling of bed very well and I had to take a longer than desired pit stop in the middle. The good thing about this is that it allowed me to grab my camera to get a shot of the nightclub-style line forming outside of Lake Chalet at 5:30 am. I guess ESPN was at Lake Chalet (go Warriors!) and people really wanted to be on TV?

For some reason I was thinking of the Willie Wonka scene, "Mom, I'm gonna be on TV!"

Saturday
am- As you may have read in Chen's blog post, 5 of us had signed up to swim a 2.4 open water race (Catfish) at Lake Del Valle. I was actually pretty excited about this because I wanted some sort of reference for what I could expect my IM swim time to be for a certain effort level. Unfortunately they marked the course a little bit short (I had 2.08 miles on my Garmin but Travers' map looks more accurate and he has it closer to 2.0 miles), but it was good enough to get a sense of expected pace. I ended up finishing in 48:30, which is somewhere between a 1:20/100y pace and 1:24/100y pace depending what distance you believe. For the conservative pace, it still extrapolates to approx an hour for the IM swim, which would be great (although I would anticipate adding a few minutes due to swimming with 2000 people instead of 200). It wasn't a very crowded start, although I found myself swimming way too close to another swimmer for almost the whole time. At first I was irritated but he actually kept me pushing the pace which I didn't mind, but I was wondering if he also found me annoying. Afterwards we chatted and he was very nice, so I'm glad we paced each other. And, it turned out, I won for overall women (my first adult win!) and got a watch, shirt, and beer mug! Cool!

It seems like everyone else thought to change before getting on the podium, whereas I'm still rocking my wetsuit. Just staying classy!

rest of the day- the 93 mile, 8950 ft climbing, hot-as-balls death ride from hell (12.3 mph). I'm not sure what I can say about this ride that I didn't sum up in the previous sentence. The very beginning of the ride was ok. We were riding as a group, chatting, doing some climbing but it wasn't too hot yet. The road was pretty deserted, with lots of scenery and wildlife (contained) and it was all going fine. One issue I had was that my toes started hurting at mile 8. According to the internet, feet swell more when it's hotter and I may need bigger shoes, so I'm going to check this out as they hurt the whole entire ride and also this morning. But back to the ride, the first 30 miles or so, although mostly climbing, were very pleasant. The fire department on Mines Road left out a huge bucket of ice water which was amazing! (Not that anyone from the fire department would read this blog, but THANK YOU!) We got to the "base" of Mt Hamilton around mile 38 and it was pretty hot out, but I thought I was ready to climb. Wrong. Very, very wrong. There is a 4.5 mile section which I calculated today to be 7.95% grade. In the heat. With no relief. I thought so many times about stopping, but the only way to get more water was to get to the top. I passed 3 cyclists, but none of them were actually riding- they were all standing in the shade stretching. I should've known it was a bad sign, but I kept plugging away. FINALLY, I got to the top, shoved my face with Gu chomps and drank gallons of water. Obligatory summit pictures:

We are WAY up there

 That's the road you take if you climb up the "easy" side. Little did I know, we did NOT approach from the easy side!!! Hence my confusion in the midst of my misery why all the blogs I read earlier in the week said "the Mt Hamilton climb isn't that bad".

Are we having fun yet? I didn't think so. 

Unfortunately, there was some decent climbing on the way back so the remaining 46+ miles weren't a gentle coast. Mentally, getting back was a huge challenge, but I suppose in hindsight I'm glad I did it for the mental toughness. I've been trying not to use bad language on this blog too much, but when I finally finished the ride I literally felt like someone had beat the shit out of me. Just took a baseball bat and nailed me in the back/shoulders (turned out to be a major sunburn), stomach (should probably start doing core again), and legs. Ugh. It felt like the Catfish swim had taken place days ago. If I feel anything like this starting the marathon in Whistler, it's going to be real interesting.

Sunday

After sleeping for 10 hours, I managed to wake up and go to the grocery store so we can eat this week. Then at 11 am I decided to rest my eyes for a second, and opened them again at 12:37. You know you got your ass handed to you the day before when you can easily sleep for 12 hours. After lunch, it was just getting to the hottest part of the day. I was slightly nauseous and shaky, but I figured why not- I'll go for my run. I was time constrained due to dinner plans and I thought running shaky in the heat would be great practice for possible Whistler conditions. Surprisingly, it ended up being not that bad*; 12 miles, 8:40 pace. I survived!! We'll see how much I pay for this weekend in next week's workouts (to be continued).

*not that bad relative to yesterday's bike ride

IM Canada: Week 17 – Chen’s version (i.e., Catfish Open Water Swim, plus holy heat ride, Batman)

Posted by Chen

After proclaiming that I was ready to tackle this last push of training, my week got off to a rocky start with two unplanned rest days on Monday and Wednesday. Our flight back from the Dirty Jerz was massively delayed thanks to some impressive storms, resulting in a 4am bedtime Sunday night and no time or energy to workout Monday. Wednesday’s rest didn’t necessarily have to happen, but after another long workday, an early bedtime seemed more appealing than a cold, windy run.

I felt so guilty about the extra rest, though, that I did a 3-hour backwards tri on Thursday, which was probably an idiot move given this weekend’s workouts, but it at least made me feel better about myself at the time.

Yesterday’s long workout was the highlight (lowlight?) of the week, starting with the Catfish Open Water Swim over at the Del Valle Regional Park area in Livermore. Rachel, Travers, Katie, Matt and I all competed in the 2.4-mile wetsuit division, though the course ended up being quite short at 2.1 miles. Still, the overall experience was similar enough to what we’ll face at the start in Whistler, which was the whole point of partaking in this race anyway.

The morning started off with less than ideal bodily conditions, as I awoke with a moderate hangover after less than 5 hours of sleep. I find it comical that throughout all of my May travels and events that included a trip to Nashville, a wedding, and my 10^th college reunion, I managed to prevent any hangovers from happening, but give me one night of Benihana’s and karaoke, and I’m on the floor. Too. Much. Sapporo.

I suppose the good thing about being so focused on re-hydrating myself was that I never had a chance to get too nervous before the race. In the back of my mind was the panic attack that I’d experienced during Napa HITS, which I very much wanted to avoid this time around.

The race had an in-water “mass” start (which I have in quotes because there were only 200 or so people starting at the same time – we’ll have to face ten times that in Whistler), and I positioned myself in the back. At 8:15am, we were off, and I put my head down and just focused on keeping myself relaxed. I was determined to maintain my usual pattern of bilateral breathing every three strokes and kept reminding myself that this was just like swimming in the pool. Only murkier and with lots of new friends around :P.

It seemed like it took a long time to get to the first sighting buoy, and as I started to think about just how much more we had to go, I could feel a wave of panic go from my head right down to my feet. It was creepy how I could feel it overcome me like that. In that moment, though, I just told myself “no.” That was NOT going to happen today. I focused my thoughts on my time in the pool and how comfortable I now am with swimming. I thought about the random swimming buddies I’ve made at the pool and how encouraging they always are, and that instantly calmed me down. I COULD do this without panicking.

And with that, the panic was gone. The crowd thinned out quickly, and the rest of the swim went quite smoothly as I focused on making it from one buoy to the next. I actually found myself enjoying the swim and looking around at the scenery every time I breathed or sighted. I even found a pattern of sighting that worked well, which I plan to utilize at Whistler.

The whole thing seemed to go more quickly than I expected, and I came out of the water and crossed the line at 1:07:21 (again, 2.1 miles, not 2.4). Extrapolating out to the full distance means this would have taken me about 1:18, which I would be ecstatic with at IM Canada. Anything under 1:30 will be delightful.

I found the crew and learned that Rachel had won the whole thing for the women (which I fully expected) and that Travers had placed 2^nd in his AG (also not surprising). Shockingly, I learned I had taken third among females 30-39 – Yay for small races!

First time standing on a podium, ever! 

Sweet beer receptacle

After the awards ceremony, we all headed to our cars to gear up for the second leg of the day – a ridiculously hot and difficult ride towards Mount Hamilton (Rachel and Travers actually made it to the top and conquered 93+ miles, while the rest of us turned around early to hit 75 miles for the day). Without going into too much detail, let’s just say that this ride was so hard that no fewer than two of us independently thought about riding off the side of the mountain, because that might feel better than continuing to climb.

The whole thing was just a huge mental and physical challenge for me. I started off feeling pretty tired given the heat and the fact that I’d worked out 5 times between Thursday and Friday. I wasn’t expecting myself to have a stellar day, and I would be right. Thanks to only having ridden my bike outside once during the month of May, I found myself experiencing rookie hand, shoulder, and @$$ pain early on in the ride, which never subsided, and actually got substantially worse. It was also so hot out that at many points, the breeze/wind actually made me feel HOTTER. I concentrated extra hard on fueling and hydrating frequently, which helped me avoid any major crashes, but still, this ride was a rough one.

Side note: One bright moment occurred when I finally hydrated using my back bottle (on my seat post)! I’ve always been too afraid that I wouldn’t be able to get the bottle back in its holder without toppling over, but this ride was so hot and made me so thirsty that my choices were either to reach for the bottle or die. I chose the bottle. Took some fancy hand/bottle maneuvering, but I figured it out! #winning!

Anyway, despite the pain, I’m still glad we did this, because we’ve learned that there’s a chance the ride in Whistler will be just as hot. Better to prepare and expect for the worst!

Overall, it was a solid day with the Running for the Win(e) crew. I’m not sure if I’ve expressed this enough, but I’m SO grateful that we’re all doing this together. There’s no way I would have the motivation to put in this amount of training without the support and camaraderie of these fine folks. You guys are the best!

IM Canada Week 17 Recap:

Monday: 

• Unplanned rest (massive flight delay)

Tuesday: 

• PM: Swimming 3200 yards, including swim / pull ladder (average pace of 1:49/100yds)
• Immediately followed by stationary ride with resistance intervals: 20.19 miles in 1:05:00 (18.6mph)

Wednesday: 

• Unplanned rest. I don’t wanna talk about it.

Thursday: 

• PM: Backwards tri: Bay Trail run practicing various speeds for each mile (e.g., mile repeat, steady state, GMP, easy): 9 miles 1:11:10 (overall ~7:54 pace)
• Backwards tri: Stationary ride, moderate / hard effort: 20.2 miles in 1:04:55 (18.7mph)
• Backwards tri: Swimming 2200 yards, including 500s swimming and pulling (average pace of 1:50/100yds)

Friday: 

• PM: Easy run on Bay Trail: 6.4 miles in 54:33 (~8:31 pace)
• Immediately followed by shake out swim of 1800 yards (average pace of 1:50/100yds)

Saturday: 

• AM: Catfish Open Water Swim: ~3700 yards in 1:07:21 (~1:49/100yd)
• AM/PM: Biking part of Mount Hamilton in the blazing heat: 75.1 miles 5:55:33 with 5500+ feet of climbing (12.7mph)

Sunday: 

• PM: Running Golden Gate Park medium long run: 12 miles in 1:44:19 (~8:42 pace). I kept the effort easy, and this run ended up feeling surprisingly decent. It helped that I waited for the heat and sun to pass, so I was able to run in foggy, cool conditions. The only downside to waiting so long was running on a full day’s worth of food, which resulted in a bathroom pit stop at mile 7. Nice mental image, eh? You’re welcome.

Rachel's IM Canada training: week 16 (of 24)

Posted by Rachel

Good thing this was a step back week, because beginning a week with a long weekend in Vegas is NOT good for training. Vegas was a mix of things I might normally do and things I would almost never do. For example,

Running on Dunkin (emphasis on running :)- falls into the "normal" category.

Carb-ing up with a massive amount of bagels? Also normal.

Riding a massive ferris wheel? Not normal, but not totally unpredictable.

Shots at 2 am at the nightclub? NOT NORMAL.

Biggest surprise: I insisted on seeing Mystere from Cirque du Soleil. I wasn't sure what to expect, because thanks to movies liked 'Knocked Up', I always assumed you had to be super high to enjoy the show. NOT TRUE. The athleticism is amazing. Now I know what all of the retired professional divers (and synchronized divers) and gymnasts do with their talent. I didn't get any photos of the good parts, but here's one example of the insanity:

And to think.... sometimes I struggle with my 15 min core class.

Anyway, I highly recommend seeing Mystere. We capped the weekend with a 30th birthday dinner for my sister at Hakkasan (our second Michelin star restaurant experience!). 

After all this in less than 48 hours, our flight home was delayed and we got in Monday night (Tuesday morning) in the 3:00 hour... just in time to sleep a few hours only (again) and go to work Tuesday morning. Consequently, almost all of my workouts this week (except swimming) felt like crap. Is that just because it's recovery and my body was making up for being really cooperative in May, or was it the excessive drinking? Here's my rundown.

Monday- 4 mile run in the afternoon in Vegas; hot, but didn't feel that bad considering

Tuesday- rest

Wednesday

am- 5000 yard swim: 2 x {9 x 200 on ladder interval- 1 @ 2:40, 2 @ 2:50, 3 @ 3:00, 2 @ 2:50, 1 @ 2:40}. I made all the intervals and felt pretty good, little did I know this would be my only good workout of the week.

pm- Trainer Road Charybdis- 6 x 3 min interval at VO2 max. This workout ended up being a LOT harder than it looked in graph form. (I almost died.)

Thursday- 6.5 mile run (felt errible)

Friday- 3800 yard swim at master's practice (felt alright)

Saturday- 44.3 mi biking (3900 ft climbing, 13.4 mph). This ride felt TERRIBLE, almost like I've never rode a bike before. I can't believe how bad it was. And my legs even hurt the next day, even though this was my easiest ride in a month. The worst thing about it is I have no idea why it sucked, so I don't know how to stop it from happening in the future.

Sunday- 10 mile hilly run, no watch. This was ok, although my legs felt heavy at the end. 

I better shape up for next week....the hardest part is coming up! 

IM Canada: Week 16 – Chen’s version (i.e., “I was like, why is the ground all slimy? And then I realized I was kneeling in my own vomit from three hours ago”)

Posted by Chen

The quote in my subject most accurately depicts the ridiculousness that is Princeton Reunions (and no, that quote did not come from me). I’m currently sitting at EWR, waiting for a delayed flight thanks to some serious storms (why can’t we get rain like this in the Bay??), having just spent four days at my alma mater for my 10^th reunion. While it was fantastic as always to see everyone, I’d say I’m more than ready to get home (Princeton friends – I love y’all, but I evidently can only handle y’all for four days at a time).

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, May was a month full of weekend travel, but of all my weekends, this was the one I was probably most concerned about when it came to keeping up with IM training. I was trying to think of a way to describe Princeton Reunions, but I’ve decided that no words can truly do it justice. In the absence of experiencing it yourself, let’s just say that unlimited alcohol is available nearly 24/7; lots of people stay on campus to avoid any motorized vehicles; and rumor has it that Reunions claims the prize of the largest order of Bud Light in the nation.

So, you can imagine why I had my doubts about waking up in time to swim, bike, and/or run before shenanigans ensued for the day, and complicating matters was the fact that it was 80-90 degrees with a million percent humidity the entire time. In the end, though, while I didn’t get any super long workouts in (which I purposely wasn’t planning on), I did manage to workout every day I was there, which I consider a huge win.

Our Reunions weekends always start off with samplers at Triumph

Reunions are so nuts that they involve costumes. Our class theme was the Tentucky Derby, and myself and my two friends were the costume chairs. Months of work went into this get-up, and in the end, we were pretty pleased with the results. Except the pants were see-through. Who needs pants, anyway...

You can't have a Derby without a horse

The costume chairs!

It’s a little nerve wracking when I think about the fact that I’ve only biked long once and run long once throughout the entire month of May, but I know June will be the hardest month yet, and I’m luckily going to be staying local, which will help ensure I actually complete all workouts. Only 8 (8!!!) weeks stand between us and the starting line at Whistler, and I’m ready for this final push of training. Bring it, June – it’s on like Donkey Kong!

IM Canada Week 16 Recap:

Monday: 

• AM: Easy recovery run (post Mountains 2 Beach) along the coast in Santa Barbara. Despite not having proper use of my quads, this run was simply stunning. 4.1 miles 38:21 (~9:21 pace)

Tuesday: 

• PM: Swimming 3000 yards, including 500s and 300s. This swim felt hella wonky and slow (average pace of 1:50/100yds)
• Immediately followed by stationary biking easy/moderate: 16.7 miles 1:00:00 (16.7mph)

Wednesday: 

• AM: Swimming 3000 yards: 2 x (500 swim, 500 pull, 500 paddles) (average pace of 1:47/100yds)
• PM: Trainer ride with fast spin intervals and a fast finish: 16.5 miles 1:00:38 (16.3mph)

Thursday: 

• AM: Running along the Princeton towpath. It was ridiculously hot and humid out, so much so that when I stopped to turn around, I was immediately enveloped by a cloud of awfulness, and the only way to feel less awful was to start running again to get even the slightest bit of airflow. Everything felt terrible, so I cut the run short and bee lined it to our campus center, where I proceeded to chug a Powerade and a liter of Diet Coke. 8.5 miles 1:16:21 (~8:59 pace)

Friday: 

• AM: Swimming 4000 yards, including 4x350 on 7:00, 4x250 on 5:00, and 4x150 on 3:00 (average pace of 1:47/100yds). I got up at 6am to be there when the pool opened at 6:45am, and I believe I was the only sign of life on campus.

Saturday: 

• AM: Short brick steady state stationary ride: 15.5 miles 52:20 (17.8mph)
• Immediately followed by short brick treadmill run: 2.25 miles 18:17 (~8:08 pace). I would have stayed in that gym forever if they had let me, because that A/C was glorious.

Sunday: 

• AM: Running along the Princeton towpath again; it was equally as hot and humid, but my body felt slightly more adapted to the disgustingness, so this run was slightly less miserable than Thursday’s. Still pretty miserable, though. My first run back in the Bay will surely feel glorious! 8.15 miles 1:12:48 (~8:56 pace)

IM Canada: Week 15 – Chen’s version (i.e., Mountains 2 Beach Marathon Race Report)

Posted by Chen

Sorry I’m posting this a full week late; my month of travel craziness continues!

Week 15 was a bit reminiscent of the struggles encountered in Week 13, as I started out with two rest days thanks to being sick, and work continued to give me hell once I was back in the office. I could whine about it, but then I’d just bore you guys, so I’ll just say that the week was a bit of a cluster that made me feel like a super crazy person at many points, but I guess I’m also getting used to the crazy. So… yay?

On a much brighter note, the week ended with a lovely long weekend down in the Ventura / Santa Barbara area, and the brightest note of all was that Paige and I got to reunite with Sandi and her mom for the Mountains 2 Beach marathon (in case you’re new here, Sandi and Will moved to the east coast a couple months ago, and we miss them lots).

After an early morning endurance swim Saturday morning, Paige and I started the long drive down to Ventura. I used to make the drive down to SB all the time, and it would always take me about 5 hours (which was quite long enough for me), but thanks to Memorial Day weekend traffic and the fact that I’m pretty sure the Bay is considerably more crowded now than it was in 2010 when I used to make the trek, we didn’t make it down there until dinner time.

After a quick pit stop at our crappy motel (which managed to lose my reservation that I made months ago; rawr), we met up with Sandi and her mom and drove 10 miles south to the Olive Garden.

That’s right, folks. History repeated itself. And it was awesome. I heart you, unlimited salad and breadsticks.

After getting back to our motel and planning out some spectating logistics, we headed to bed for an early 3am wake-up call.

The (only) nice thing about our crappy motel was that it was situated two blocks away from where the busses would pick us up at 4am, which is why we stayed there in the first place. Everything with the shuttles went smoothly, and we arrived at the start in Ojai with over an hour and a half to spare before the 6am start.

Last year, I spent my time sitting in the cold on the concrete ground, wishing I’d worn more throwaway clothes. This year, I came prepared with a hoody, sweatpants, and a fleece blanket, but it turned out we wouldn’t really need layers since we luckily nabbed a spot in an open post office where dozens of runners were huddling for warmth.

We found a spot on the ground and chatted a bit here or there, but we mostly listened to the buzz of other runners talking about their race plans. We would have chatted about our race plans too; that is, if we had any. After two bathroom stops, we finally checked our gear and lined up at the start.

My only goal for this race was to not do anything stupid. I was going to run by feel and keep it easy, so I had assumed Sandi would be ahead of me the whole time. In the end, though, we stuck together the entire time, and I’m really glad we did. It was so nice to be running together again!

I recapped this race last year, so I won’t go into too many details about the course (if you don’t want to read my old post, I’ll just tell you that it’s mostly downhill or flat, except for a long, gradual incline along miles 6 and 7).

Our splits during the first half mostly ranged from 8:20-8:30, and I was happy that the pace felt pretty easy. Although it was forecasted to be a pretty warm day, the clouds came out to play for a while, and the bike trail was also shaded, so temps felt pretty comfortable for most of the race. Sandi and I chatted on and off throughout this part, and overall I was feeling good.

I even stumbled upon someone I’ve been following on Instagram for the past 6 months (Hi, Jen!), and it was really nice to finally meet her in person.

After the halfway point, we (unintentionally) dropped into the 8:10-8:20 range, and things still felt mostly comfortable. Perhaps not surprisingly, my cardio state felt great throughout the entire race, but my low-volume running made itself evident once again (just as it had during Oakland a couple months ago), and I started to feel what I call “rookie pains.” Nothing concerning; just the typical soreness and fatigue that comes with repetitive pounding that you’re not used to.

I would say the first 10 miles felt easy; the next 10 felt moderate, and then by the time we hit the beach area where things flattened out, the last 6.2 felt pretty uncomfortable. I never felt like I would crash, but my legs were just tired and ready for beer. It was also very sunny and hot by this point, so Sandi and I just put our heads down and steadily made our way to the finish.

We crossed the line in 3:39:55, which in retrospect was a little aggressive for a training run, but I was happy with how the effort felt overall.

We spent the rest of the day in Santa Barbara, eating on a lovely deck outside on the pier and wine tasting throughout the downtown area (what used to be a relatively empty warehouse area has now blossomed into 20+ wineries / distilleries / breweries! Lucky ducks).

Looking forward to our next race weekend with Sandi in the fall!

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go recap Week 16 :-).

So happy to be running with Sandi again!

Delicious lobster tacos consumed post-race in the sun on a lovely roof deck on the pier

Beach in Goleta the next day

IM Canada Week 15 Recap:

Monday: 

• Rest. Still sick with a fever and sinus issues.

Tuesday: 

• Rest. Still sick, but on the upswing.

Wednesday: 

• PM: Swimming 3200 yards, including 2 x (500 swim, 500 pull, 500 paddles) (average pace of 1:49/100yds)
• Immediately followed by stationary bike ride with resistance intervals: 25.55 miles 1:31:00 (16.8mph)

Thursday: 

• PM: Hilly easy run in Golden Gate Park: 8.7 miles 1:17:05 (~8:52 pace)
• Immediately followed by trainer ride with fast spin intervals: 14 miles 53:35 (15.7mph)

Friday: 

• PM: Trainer ride very easy with fast finish: 14.15 miles 1:00:00 (14.15mph)

Saturday: 

• AM: Swimming 4300 yards, including 2 x (500 swim, 500 pull, 500 paddles, 500 kick)

Sunday: 

• AM: Mountains 2 Beach Marathon with Sandi! 3:39:55

Rachel's IM Canada training: week 15 (of 24)

Posted by Rachel

Two of my fellow bloggers are running a marathon right now. I'm sitting in a bed in Las Vegas, mildly hungover, writing a blog post. And while they're probably 18 miles or so into their run, I just woke up. Some people are more productive than others. I also know that Chen would laugh in the face of a mild hangover and go for a 10-15 mile run, but I think I'll just sit here and write this post until I can motivate myself to get coffee.

So, training. This was a good week where I also had some struggles. But considering there are only about 2 months left, this training cycle was the most difficult so far so I should probably expect to be tired. Here's a recap of my week with stories.

Monday
am- 4000 yard swim. After the weekend's epic journey bike ride Saturday and crazy trail run Sunday, I was ready to just float around. Luckily I saw a training buddy at the pool so about half the workout was structured then the other half was just floating around. I also left for a 24 hour work trip to Santa Barbara Monday afternoon. Quick work trips are exhausting, but there's no better place to go so I can't complain.

I think that, collectively, every blog writer in this account has made the point repeatedly about how amazing Santa Barbara is, so I'll try to not be exhaustive about it

Tuesday

am- 8 mile unintentional progression run (slow to fast, 8:05 pace). As much as I dislike running first thing in the morning, I was so psyched for this run. It was 2 miles from our hotel to the trail to the beach, so I figured I better run 8 to get my beach time in. Two days after swearing off trail running forever, here I am running along a packed trail on Atascadero Creek to get to the beach (it was flat and packed though).

Then finally, I got to enjoy sunrise over Goleta Beach. It's funny how I used to live here (and of COURSE I appreciated it when I did), but now I'm taking my camera on runs and thinking I would wake up at 5 am ANY day for this.

Good morning, Pacific Ocean (pre oil spill) from the bluffs

(Disclaimer: I'm not hating on my current residence, because the Bay area is also quite beautiful. I'm just having SB nostalgia.)

After getting home from the business trip at 6 pm, I had time for a trainer ride.

pm- Trainer Road: Bird. 15 x 1 min hard intervals at my new FTP were... well, hard. The 8 mile run at a decent clip then sitting on a plane probably didn't help the situation. (60 min/15.1 mph)

Wednesday

Bike commute- 29.7 miles, 2400 ft, 13.0 mph. This was one of the toughest rides I've had all training. I'm in the 3rd week of a build cycle and had just done intervals the day before, and my legs were DEAD. Add in a brutal 15 mph headwind and hills, and it was tempting to take the train home instrad of ride. But these are the workouts that show you can get though rough spots (which are bound to happen in an IM), so I'm glad I did not in fact take the train. 

Thursday

am- skipped morning spin class. One of the first self-prescribed workouts that I skipped, but I figured I wouldn't get much out of it given the state of my legs.

pm- 6.5 miles comfortable run (8:20)

Friday

4000 yards @ master's swim practice.I had some decent pull sets and a 300-200-100 set at the end on 1:25 base that I finished with decent times (3:54/2:33/1:13) so overall this swim was alright.

Saturday

BRICK. Due to having a 3 pm flight to Vegas, I had to (1) wake up at the ass crack of dawn for this workout, and (2) structure it a little differently than past bricks. I figured since my biking is weaker than my running, I'd go for a harder ride and shorter run. So the bike leg was 62.6 miles, 5800 ft climbing, 13.3 mph. 13.3 mph, you may not notice for the distance/climbing, is about 0.5-0.7 mph slower than it should've been- so what happened? Well, it was foggy but mid-50s at sea level (warm enough I guess), but the weather at 2000 ft was MISERABLE. It was freezing cold, windy, and raining. So here I am in the 7:00 hour, riding my bike in super low visibility, with a wet hydroplane-looking layer on the road riding around curving, hilly roads. It was here I decided I would cut the ride short. But then I fought back against myself- am I going to quit in the Ironman because I don't like the weather?? I hope not (especially given the entry fee), so I better man TF up. 

It's freezing and I can't see shit, but I won't quit!

I got to the bottom of the hill on the other side (20 miles into the ride) at an average of 11.0 mph. So that added a lot of time to my ride, but the weather was better over there and I must have rode at a decent pace the rest of the ride to get back up to 13.3 mph. I'll accept this as a victory. When I got home, I did a 6.5 mile run at 8:12 pace. I pushed toward the end because I knew it was a short run, but my quads were starting to fatigue and it would be a bad strategy to run that quickly in the IM marathon (mental note). Luckily, the lines at the OAK airport were short as usual so I had time to replenish some of the calories.

Fenton's coffee oreo ice cream and Auntie Annie's pretzel. Salt, carbs, sugar, fat, calories.. yes please.

I also had a Shake Shack burger and fries and wine and tequila for dinner. This step back week begins in Vegas for my sister's 30th bday. And oh yeah:

Sunday

Rest. Drink.

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!