Jackie D - Week 26

Week 26 - starting Monday 12 March 2007

Scheduled hours: 6hrs 35mins
Actual hours: 6hrs 30mins

This is week 26 and that means that I have completed half a year, 6 whole months of training so far for this event. That is a long time and I am wonderfully surprised to say that pretty much all of it has been upbeat. So far I have not had any weeks at all that I have either regretted my decision to enter or not wanted to train for it. I know a lot of the hard, long work has yet to happen but even so it is has been a good achievement so far.

Having said that, this week overall (with hindsight writing on the Sunday) has probably been one of my least enjoyable weeks and lots of little reasons have contributed to this. I just haven’t felt like I have made any progress at all this week and I am glad this recovery week is over and I am back to “proper stuff” next week. (Sorry coach, I know recovery is also proper stuff, honest!)

I have had to be (and wanted to be) super flexible this week and I am getting much better at that mentally wise. I knew the kids would be off school on Friday (superintendents day or something) so I had to plan workouts that I could do at home for then, so, I swapped my Friday brick (YES my first brick for months) to Monday and that was a great way to start the week because I rode my bike outside. OUTSIDE YEH! It was a funny ride though. Despite all the indoor cycle training, within the first 5 minutes I thought I was going to die. Then within the next 5 minutes I wondered how on earth I was going to complete the Pittsford sprint triathlon let alone an Ironman. All I did was concentrate on keeping a high cadence to get me through. I guess it didn’t help that it was mostly uphill and into the wind for the first half (I did an out and back). After I had turned around and was on the way back I began to look forward to the longer rides. This one was only 45minutes. I followed up with a 30min run with instructions to go on the feel of breathing, not how legs felt. I honestly felt like I was going really slowly, as slow as my slow recovery runs, so, when my Garmin beeped to tell me I had done my first mile in under 9 minutes I was amazed. My legs felt fine so I am looking forward to more bricks.

I took my bike in to have a tune up and to get some new bike shoes. I had the walkable type shoes that are a little flexible and thought it was time for some nice powerful stiff ones. Yet to try them out though because the rest of my cycling week was done indoors (either pouring with rain, freezing cold again or kids at home).

My second workout of the week was a 1000m time trial swim. I was devastated at the end to find that my time since my last one (in December) had decreased by 40 seconds! After the initial depression and feeling sorry for myself I am determined that the next one will be different.
At this point in the week (actually before the swim but not using that as an excuse ‘cos it was fine once warmed up) I noticed that my right upper arm hurt a bit if I lift it in a certain way (upright row and recovery of freestyle). My second weight session and my second swim session were cut short because of this. Think it is probably a pulled muscle, although no idea how I did it and I am hoping it will just go away soon.

More flexibility in my schedule came at about 4pm on Thursday. I had done nothing all day as that is my scheduled masters evening swim but I had been snacking all afternoon to make sure I had some energy for the swim. Then I got a phone call to say swimming was cancelled because of a pool problem. Yikes! So, I swap my Sunday long run to then and go out as soon as hubby got back from work to take over kid duty. It was cold, much colder than I anticipated so not very enjoyable. It was also dark for the second half of it which was extra noticeable since all the snow had melted and so no white reflecting all the light.
From about 20minutes in I felt really hungry and this was only a very easy run. It did make me think that perhaps I need to rethink nutrition for my evening swims - I am sure I don’t notice that I am hungry during them because they are so intense but I know I am ravenous afterwards.

During the week I read an article about nutrition with the theme “Eat to train, not train to eat” and that rang so many bells for me. I can honestly say that I am well on the way to the better side of that equation, despite my regular sweet tooth lapses. My mantra to help me on this one is one I remember being told whilst learning computer at school…Garbage in…..garbage out! I think that is just as true for our bodies so I want to give myself the best chance by eating healthily. (BTW it is funny that I remember being taught that saying in England as I never really came across the word “garbage” again til I came to the USA)

Waiting in excitement to find out what the next few weeks have in store - and it looks like I may even be able to ride outside again.


18 WEEKS TO GO