IMCdA Training Summary: Week 13

As I mentioned last week, I am training with my coach again and my body is getting the ass kicking it needs. My volume increased dramatically to 14 hours this week by adding some more cycling workouts to my training. I managed to do a decent job of pacing myself and didn’t burn out early in the week.

Staying injury-free is my highest priority so I’m doing a lot of hip-strengthening exercises and spending plenty of quality time with my torture devices Trigger Point Therapy kit to keep my IT band and other body parts happy.

Friday night, I ditched the spandex and donned some satin for the company holiday party. I successfully avoided any wardrobe malfunctions/high heel-related injuries and walked away with a raffle prize (a bluetooth speaker).

Doing my best Vanna White impression

The weather was perfect for riding on Saturday, but I was a bit dehydrated from the Friday night festivities and I was worried about bonking so I opted to spin on the trainer for two hours instead.

Sunday, I headed to Redwood City to do repeats on Cañada Road for my 40 mile bike + 60 minute run workout. The road is a series of gentle rolling hills without any flat sections and is a perfect venue to force myself out of some bad habits. These were my self-imposed rules for the ride:

(a) stay in the big ring – I really need to develop my climbing strength
(b) no coasting allowed – I tend to coast way too much
(c) stay aero during all descents – I get nervous descending in the aerobars but there isn’t much point to having a TT bike if I’m going to be sitting up most of the time. I need to grow a pair (figuratively, of course) and get comfortable with this.

Strong winds combined with rules (a) and (b) had my legs feeling like bricks by the end of my ride and I just wanted to go home and stuff my face but I had a 60 minute run to do. I spent the next hour on the hilly dirt trail that runs along the road. It was a tough workout, but I felt so proud to have completed it.

The beautiful view from Cañada Road

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Monday
Strength training: 90 minutes

Tuesday
Run: 5 miles at the track

Wednesday
Swim: 2,300 yards
Bike: 90 minutes on the trainer with pedal drills

Thursday
Strength training: 1 hour

Friday
Swim: 2,500 yards
Run: 4 miles

Saturday
Bike: 2 hours on the trainer

Sunday
Bike: 40 miles
Run: 60 minutes

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IMCdA Training Summary: Week 12

If you’re one of the few people that follow my training every week, you’re probably starting to get a little bored since each post basically looks like the ones before it. Fear not, my faithful readers because I have some changes in the works starting next week. After a year long hiatus, I recruited my former (and now current) coach to help me prepare for my first Ironman. I received my plan for next week and it’s definitely going to shake things up for me.

Here’s a helpful nugget of information: if you want to get better at something, you should spend some time and effort to practice it. After disregarding this advice for a couple years, I finally started swimming with some consistency and am reaping the benefits. I’m swimming further and faster than ever before. This week, I completed a two-mile swim for the first time ever! I stayed relaxed throughout the swim and was stunned to see that I maintained a 2:00/100 yard average pace over 2 miles. This may sound painfully slow to most of you, but it’s a huge improvement for me as I struggled to swim just 100 yards in 2:20 just a few months ago. Work works!

This is not a torture chamber anymore

Saturday was spent on the trainer because I didn’t want deal with ice patches on the roads and because living in California for 8 years has made me a cold-weather wimp. Trainer rides can be boring but at least you don’t have to worry about how you’re going to stash a bowl full of potatoes in your kit.

Bike n brunch

Do you work with a coach when you’re training for a race?
Do you get excited when you reach a new training milestone?
What do you do to keep trainer rides fun?

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Monday
90 minutes of strength training

Tuesday
Run: 3 miles at the track

Wednesday
Swim: 2,300 yards
Hourly plank challenge: 10×1-minute planks

Thursday
Bike: 1 hour on the trainer

Friday
Swim: 3,300 yards

Saturday
Bike: 1:45 on the trainer

Sunday
Run: 6.5 miles easy