Ironman Week 12

3/19-3/25

Finally a week I feel pretty good about! I eased into it after being sick over the weekend but ended up having some killer workouts. Speed workouts in the pool, on the track, and on the bike, two brick workouts, and my first open water swim of the season were some highlights. And in non-triathlon related news, I got in to my second grad school!

Monday
rest
Had a swim on the schedule but still felt pretty crappy so I skipped and rested instead.

Tuesday
am: bike / 16.7 mi / 1:00 / avg 16.7 mph
Easy hour ride before work. This was my first workout after being sick and I felt a little fatigued so I tried to keep the effort easy. I was still really congested so it was quite the snotfest!

ahhh no rain and clear skies!

Wednesday
am: swim / 1,400 yds / 0:40

• warm-up:
• 300
• 100 kick
• 8x100 @ 1:30 on 3:00
• cool-down: 200

Oh boy, this one was a doozy! This was basically the swim equivalent of a track workout and nearly killed me. I was nervous going into it because 1:30s are literally an all out sprint for me and I was still feeling a bit crappy from my cold. I figured I'd do my best and see what I ended up with. Thank goodness I had so much rest between 100s because they were hard. I averaged more like 1:35 but was happy with the effort. I'd much rather swim long and easy than short and fast, but I know it's the latter that will get me faster.

After the storm that stretched through last week we were treated to an absolutely gorgeous day complete with sun and warm temps. I had the day off so when I finished my swim I laid out to dry for a while and watched the masters swimmers (side note: it amazes me how fast these people swim and how effortless they make it look!). It only took 30 or 40 minutes (plus my swim) before I developed a lovely one-piece burn on my back : / Totally worth it to enjoy the sun though!

ohhh yeaaaa

pm: run / 5.4 mi / 0:50 / avg 9:23
Keeping the anaerobic theme going for the day I had a track workout later that evening. I haven't done a track workout in ages so I was actually kind of looking forward to it. I parked my car between my house and the Sac State track and ran the 10 minutes there as a warm up. I had 8x400 @ 7:30 pace (1:52 per lap) with 2 minutes walk/jog recovery. On each repeat I found myself struggling to stay at the prescribed pace - my legs wanted to run faster! Since 400s are pretty short intervals I feel like they should be all out, or close to, and 7:30s just felt a bit too easy. Anyway, here are my splits: 1:38, 1:46, 1:48, 1:48, 1:47, 1:48, 1:49, 1:49. I generally ran the first 200 way too fast only to slow way down on the latter half to try and get closer to the 7:30 goal. Cooled down back to my car and was spent for the day!

Thursday

[brick]

pm: bike / 17.2 mi / 0:57 / avg 18.1 mph
This was both an interval workout and a brick. After a 15 minute warm up I had 8x2' in Z5 with 2' easy spin recovery. I'd had trouble before getting my heart rate high enough on bike intervals so I asked a coworker for some tips. They suggested both a hard gear and high cadence; I tried this and managed to get into Z4 and reach speeds in the 20+ mph range, but Z5 remained elusive. It was still a hard effort though so I'll take it as a win!

a weird and cloudy sky made the sun look like a spotlight

pm: run / 2.4 mi / 0:20 / avg 8:32
Easy transition run post-bike. As usual with my brick runs, my pace was faster than normal, but I actually managed to keep my HR in Z2! This was like a mini breakthrough for me to be able to run faster but keep my HR low. Woohoo!

Friday
am: bike / 16.2 mi / 1:00 / avg 16.2 mph
Easy morning ride before work. My legs were tired (as they should be after 2 days of hard workouts!). The schedule called for Z1 since it was a recovery ride, but I was still frustrated to see the slower speeds. Gotta work on this!

wild turkeys!

Saturday
am: run / 5 mi / 0:45 / avg 9:01
The schedule called for a warm-up followed by 30 minutes at "race pace". I'd asked my coach what exactly that pace should be and she'd told me half Ironman run pace, which I decided was around 9:00 per mile. I ended up running the middle three miles at 8:57, 8:47, and 8:42. Close enough I guess!

Sunday
am: swim / 800 yds* / 0:20
Our first open water swim of the season! It was supposed to storm all day but fortunately it held off. The MTC group met up at Beals Point at Folsom Lake and donned our wetsuits. The lake is super low so we had a long walk down to the water. The temps were in the low 50s - now if you're like me, you don't really have any concept of how cold or warm certain water temps are. But let me just tell you, friends, this water was freeeeeezing!! Seriously, my feet hurt for a good 5 minutes before they finally went numb. It took us all a good 10 minutes to work our way in. Finally we decided to set out for a buoy and when my face hit the water I thought my brain had frozen. It was so cold it was hard to breath and made me a little disoriented. We made it to the buoy and by then all exposed parts were sufficiently numb. It was way too cold to really get in a good swim workout though so we headed back to shore and called it more of a "mental toughness" workout ; )

*Obviously, the distance is estimated.

[brick]

pm: bike / 36 mi / 2:00 / avg 18 mph
I wanted to get my brick done before it potentially started raining so I headed out as soon as I got home from my swim. I was pleased to find that I was able to keep up speeds of 18+ mph while still keeping my HR in Z2. The rain held off despite the prevalent clouds and it actually warmed up as the sun peeked out.

crazy clouds

pm: run / 1.8 mi / 0:15 / avg 8:24
Another transition run, this time at "race pace". Again, it was a bit faster, but it was hard to slow down on a 15 minute run!

Totals

swim: 2,200 yards

bike: 86.1 miles

run: 14.6 miles

other: 0 hours

total time: 8.1 hours