Peak Weekend and Training Recap

Posted by Matt

I've been an infrequent blogger (at best), but since we've entered the taper section of our training, it seems like a good time to write a recap of the training thus far. No crazy stories like Chen, but our training has been going pretty well. Overall, I have really enjoyed Ironman training, much more than I thought I would at the beginning (when it was interfering with ski season). It would not have been possible without my gorgeous wife Katie also participating and us motivating each other when times got tough or one of us had work or injuries interfere. 

Now, without further ado, here goes. I'll start with a brief look back at the training and then go into a bit more detail on the most recent "peak" weekend. 

All of the training

Here is all of my training, in 4 graphs:

A summary of our training to date based on our 20 week training plan. 

My biggest week was actually the week of the Primavera century, probably because I was also trying to make up for lost days from the weekend prior, which I spent skiing with a friend visiting from the East Coast. The 3 weekends that I skied were all down weeks in training, but they, especially the climb up Mt. Shasta, certainly added to my fitness despite not showing up in the spreadsheets. We had 4 main build sessions over 16 weeks, with one build having a "focus" week on each sport. I was skeptical of the focus week at first, but it mixed up the training a bit and allowed us to focus and gain confidence in each of the disciplines. The run focus week was by far my highest mileage running week of training in a long time, probably since 2009 since I switched to a "run less, run faster" approach to running. 

View from the top of Mt. Shasta. The view was worth missing a weekend of training. And getting to the view was worth a weekend of training. A win, win. 

Since I didn't post much during the training, I'll point out a few of the more notable workouts that I did:

• A few great rides in Marin involving the lighthouse, Point Reyes, and Mt Tam with various training partners. 
• a run up the stunning Montara Mountain with Mark N, concluding with a trip to the Hop Dogma. 
• The aforementioned Primavera century in Fremont which got us up to biking distance early in the training
• A nice bike ride and trail run in our favorite place of all - Tahoe. Training would not be complete without some solid workouts up there. 
• a terrific Olympic distance Tri in Folsom lake with Katie that I absolutely want to do again next year
• A big ride up Diablo from Oakland with Katie, Mark, Rachel, and Chen which really taught me the value of eating all of the things during the ride. Before this ride, Katie and I looked at the first hit on google (just like we did with our training plan) to try to figure out how much to eat while riding. It's a lot!
• A great weekend of training with Katie up in wine country over Memorial day featuring an adventurous open water swim in Lake Sonoma, a bike ride through Healdsburg, and a whole lot of running where I continued seeking out point to point runs (it was run focus week at the time). 
• The open water swim at Del Valle followed by 75 mile ride towards Hamilton with Chen, Rachel, Travers, and Katie
• A great 20 mile point to point trail run from HMB to Pacifica followed by a great, but challenging, 80 mile ride ending at our favorite Brewery the next day
• A fantastic 105 mile ride through Marin from Pacifica that ended with "FogAgeddon 2015" in which Katie and I still managed to go for a 20 minute run as it got dark about 8:30 with Kona when we got home
• Dozens of fantastic trail runs with our dog Kona, and occasionally, Katie. 
• I'm sure I missed a whole bunch of great workouts, but now on to the workouts that are most fresh in my head.

One of the great things about biking, you get to travel long distances and get fantastic views that is hard to get with the other sports. 

Peak Weekend

The July 4th weekend was perfect timing, giving us a 3 day weekend for one of the highest mileage weeks of training. Leading into the weekend, I was a bit behind on the training on the week for 2 reasons. First, I didn't step back that significantly the previous week, doing a Brick involving a 60 mile ride with Mt Tam followed by a 8 mile trail run with Mark on Sunday. So Monday, I took it a bit easy. Our Jetta also needed a new transmission, and with 160k miles, we decided a new car was in order. So 2 of my evenings this week were spent test driving and then buying a (new for us) 2011 Prius. So far it's holding up its bargain on good gas mileage, hopefully it'll last many years for its reliability reputation as well!

Friday

Back to the training part. I started the weekend off with a 6.5 mile trail run with our dog Kona on Friday morning. It was pretty hot, even in Pacifica, but overall, it was a relatively easy run, considering the 1150 feet of elevation gain. I followed that up with 40 mile ride, including San Bruno Mountain. It was a good mix of terrain, having some climbing, some flats by the airport, and then rolling hills to home by crystal springs reservoir. Overall, the elevation per mile matched what is expected from IronMan Canada, so it was nice to see my average speed (16 mph) would bring me in for the Ironman at 7 hours. I timed it so that I passed Katie on her long run about 75% of the way done, so it was great to see each other out there and give each other some support! 

Saturday

Saturday, Katie and I headed to Aquatic park for some open water swimming. We had every intention of starting early, but as co-Iron Men training partners dropped off  from joining due to their epic rides on Friday, we quickly reverted to our standard time of showing up an hour after we planned to. Nonetheless, we got 5 great laps in, for about 3300 yards. Following coffee's the size of our faces and a delicious brunch at La Boulange, our plan was to meet some friends at the beach in Pacifica to relax on the 4th. Not having a long run in for the weekend, I opted to run there from Aquatic park in SF. I love long point to point runs - it is really amazing the distance and terrain you can cover. It brings the best part of running and best part of biking together. The run was beautiful, encompassing Crissy fields, by the golden gate bridge, the presidio, Land's end, ocean beach by golden gate park, up through Fort Funston, on the beach for 2.5 miles to Mussel Rock Park, down through Pacifica, by Mori Point, and onto Linda Mar / Pacifica State Beach. It was a great last run for 21.7 miles total. It was cloudy throughout most of the run, but as I reached Linda Mar, the sun began shining. No matter how foggy Pacifica has gotten lately, it seems to be sunny in Linda Mar more often than not.  The rest of the day, we got to relax, enjoy the beach, and celebrated the 4th with traditional Burmese food. Who says you need to eat hot dogs and hamburgers on the 4th? 

Face-sized lattes.

Sunday

I was really excited about our bike ride Sunday, a loop from downtown Pacifica, down to HMB, up over the hills and back to Pacifica on Canda Rd and the trails by crystal springs. The one downside is the traffic on Route 1 by up to and down from Devils slide. We were aiming to start early to avoid the traffic, but Katie had some work to finish up in the morning so the departure slipped to about 10:30. So we had a bit of traffic on the 1 to and from Devils slide (Devils slide itself is a fantastic bike path since the tunnel went through, but we need some connecting paths so you can actually get there easily on a bike). Once we got to Montara, however, we were able to take side routes the rest of the way and avoid any traffic. I've done a lot of riding in the bay area, but the riding south of Half Moon Bay is probably my favorite. It's not terribly easy to get to (unless you're going upwards of 70+ miles, like we did on Sunday), but the views of the Pacific are absolutely gorgeous (assuming you have sunshine, which we did most of Sunday) and the climbing through the hills has beautiful creeks and soaring redwoods. And it seems that most other people don't really know about it as we generally don't see too many bikers or cars. It is highly recommended. We even got to bike into a headwind both ways for added difficulty while training! No, seriously, we had a stiff wind out of the SW as we made our way down the coast, but after our climb over the hills, the wind transition to the NW and was in our face on the way North as well. 

Meandering through the tall redwoods up to the top of Tunitas road, where we greeted with a steep, top of Mt.Diablo-like section on Swett Rd that was unexpected.  

When we got back to Pacifica (75 miles, 6700 feet of gain), we transitioned quickly and started our run. I felt great and decided to go for it, throwing down 7 miles at what I would have called goal half marathon pace - a pace I'd be pretty happy with on a normal day, nonetheless after a big ride and the day after a 20+ mile long run. I then cooled down with Katie to finish off the weekend. 

On the way back down to Pacifica. I swear it was sunny earlier in the day!

All in all, it was a solid 3 day weekend, 1.7 miles swimming, 115 miles biking, 36 miles running. This balance probably reflects my concern on the the race. The swim - I know I won't win any medals there but I'm pretty sure I will be able to finish it OK. The bike will be challenging and I need to be prepared and well fueled. In the end, however, it will come down to the run. 

Unfortunately, after this solid weekend of training, I was promptly rewarded with coming down with a cold, which is probably the real reason I have time to write this long of a blog post now. It's the 4th time in 12 endurance event tapers that I've gotten sick. But hopefully it is early enough, and with a day off work and now 2 days off training, I'll be able to hop back into the taper week training soon. Sorry, that was way longer than I expected to write, hopefully you all were able to take a break or two, and make it through that. I'm really looking forward to the race!