Rachel's IM Canada training: week 9 (of 24)

Posted by Rachel

Training recap + swim meet race report!

Sorry people, but this is going to be a long post. This week began a big step up in the biking, and from now on I'm going to try to stick with a 4 bike/ 3 run/ 2 swim pattern. In addition, I tried to squeeze all my Ironman training into 6 days so I could swim a MEET on Sunday (more on that later). So I'm exhausted and wishing that next week is a step back, but I'm not quite there :) But I had a blast, and here's the recap with stories:

Monday
am-5000 yard endurance swim. This swim felt TERRIBLE. I could barely move, my times sucked, and I could barely finish the workout. This exact thing happened 4 weeks ago and it was only temporary, so I tried not to worry too much about this.
pm- 1 hour bike trainer ride/ Trainer Road Cartwright

Tuesday
9 mile run with 2 x 3 mile tempo intervals (tempo avg 7:15/overall avg 7:32). My legs felt great..why couldn't my arms be this functional?

Wednesday
Bike commute! 29.7 miles w/ 2400 ft climbing (+ headwind), 14.1 mph. The sun finally sets late enough for us to make it from Pleasanton to Oakland after work. I enjoy bike commuting. Unfortunately Travers' chain broke at the beginning so I had to ride it alone.

Thurday
am- 45 min spin class + 15 min core class (same teacher). After the core class, our teacher (who has completed many IMs) said 'what triathlon are you training for?'. I looked confused and she explained that she could tell we were triathletes from how we rode. At first I wasn't sure if I should be offended that she knew we weren't actual cyclists, but then I decided that if it looks like I've rode a bike before, that's a big win for me.
pm- 6 miles @ 8:23 pace

Friday
am- 2400 yard swim. Coach recommended swimming less than normal to not overdo it before the meet.
pm- 13 mile run @ 8:33 pace. This was a mentally tough run because normally I love to go home after work Friday and relax. It was also my third run in four days. The run was tedious and difficult- my legs were fried from the week and I wanted to be doing anything but running. But, I'm glad I did it, because I'm sure the last 13 miles of the IM will be much worse.

Saturday
I hoped to go on a 70 mile ride, but I couldn't really find any routes I liked so instead I did the beastly 60+ miler of Tunnel-Grizzly-3 bears-Pinehurst; 63.4 miles, 13.8 mph, 5600 ft climbing. My legs were still tired, but the ride went alright. I've done this ride a few times now so it's officially "benchmarked", and I was pleased with the pace.

Sunday
Pacific Master's Short Course Championship meet! A while back, the master's coach at our gym put this idea in my head to do a swim meet (my first in 12 years!). It sounded like a great idea, although when I woke up this morning I wasn't so sure any more. I was exhausted from a long week, and possibly slightly hungover from my two drinks the night before (yes, I said two, but this first one was basically straight tequila after a long 60+ mile ride). Luckily, by the time I got to the pool I was (sort of) ready to swim!

Now let's get to the fun part- the meet! We had to put entry times for each event, and having not swam a meet in 12 years, I made some guesses of what I thought I could do on 2 days/week swim training if I was having a decent meet. Here's how I did compared to my expectations:

100 free
guess: 1:07
actual: 1:04.61
This was a great start to the meet! I was surprised by this time and ready to do more!

A picture of my before my first event! Just like back in the day, except my shoulders are half as big, my quads are twice as big, and I swim quite a bit slower!

100 back
guess: 1:12
actual: 1:09.68
I hardly train any stroke other than freestyle, so this was great, too!

200 mixed free relay (50 each)
first leg- 29.37! The coach had bet beforehand that I could break 30 sec in the 50 and I laughed. Turns out, it wasn't that funny- I barely breathed and I kicked really hard and I actually did it!

100 IM
guess: 1:16
actual : 1:12.71
At this point, I was still having a blast :)

100 breast
guess: 1:32
actual: 1:24.74
Breaststroke was always my worst stroke, and still is! Full disclosure-I got last place in my age group in this event. But there were only 3 people in the event, so if we just flip it around and say I got 3rd place in this event it sounds a lot better!

400 mixed medley relay- 1st leg
100 back (again) in 1:09.67. Yep... exactly 0.01 sec faster than before. Our team* WON this event for our age group, which was really exciting! And, Travers snapped a pic of me swimming against the boys:

*Our team is called "Club Hot Tub". The cap has a picture of a hot tub with a wine glass, and says "get in it!". This team is the perfect fit for me!

The problem with this 100 back was at this point, I had swum 550 yards all HARD. My arms were feeling REALLY tired. Pretty much just dead. Which sucked, because about 15 min after the relay, I had to swim the 1000 fr, ugh.

1000 fr
guess: 13:02
actual: 12:52.60
The time was decent, but the swim was awful. My arms felt SO tired and I wanted to quit after 175 yards (I actually contemplated it). I breathed too much, didn't kick at all, and glided into EVERY single turn. I could've easily got 10 sec back from this race by not gliding into the turns but I was too tired to care. My coach said, "I could tell you were tired when it looked like you were just flinging your arms around." Well... my arms had to get around somehow. At least the whole meet was fun until this 1000, and the time was decent considering. I'm about 8 sec/100 yd slower than I was when I was an actual swimmer, which I'll take as a win. Maybe I'll swim another meet again someday after this Ironman business is over... maybe.