Here's a truly brief run down of my workouts last week and so far this week. It's followed by some more details on how my first century ride went and some musings on how training for an Ironman f's with your head.
Week 25 (16:45 total)
Monday: Rest, yay!
Tuesday: 1:00 run, 1:15 swim, weights and core
Wednesday: 45 minute ride with transition to 15 minute run
Thursday: 1:30 swim (2.3 miles!), 1:00 trainer ride
Friday: 1:05 swim, 0:30 run in morning, another 0:30 in the evening.
Saturday: 6:45 ride (first century ride! ended up doing 110 miles...) followed by a 0:35 run (all I could handle, more on all this later)
Sunday: 1:35 run
Week 26 (projected 14:30 total)
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 1:15 swim, 1:05 run
Wednesday: 1:00 bike
Thursday: 13 hour sleep
Friday: 0:50 swim, 0:30? bike ride (I didn't wear a watch, which felt weird)
Saturday: 2:30 run
Sunday: 1:30 bike (got caught in a rainstorm and then was too cold and chafed to continue. Should probably invest in a jacket...)
Monday: 5:15 bike followed by 1:00 run (4000 ft of climbing over 72.5 miles, and running afterwards was easier than Week 24's 5 hr bike/1hr run brick. Victory!!!)
So, first century ride: before that day my longest ride had been 77 miles, but I felt okay tackling 100 because the ride was fully supported and the course was really flat. It was pretty easy to miss the course markings, so I took a lot of wrong turns and ended up riding 110 miles total, I considered doing an extra 2 but by the end I didn't want to spend another second on my bike. There were aid stations with water, Gatorade and a good selection of food about every 20 miles. I tried to spend as little time stopped as possible to mimic the race, but around 67 miles I was really hungry for something other than gels (and for some reason I only brought one Bonk Breaker bar with me) so I hung out on the grass for a while and had a huge PB&J. About 1:30 into the ride my right shoulder started to really hurt, like someone was stabbing my shoulder blade, and it was even worse when I was on my aero bars. When I got home I saw an irritated bump and figured I'd been stung by a wasp. Since I didn't know this during the ride, I thought there was something wrong with my bike fit or that I'd swam too much or something. By the end of the ride I was really mad at my body for hurting so much when I didn't think it deserved to. Well, by the end of the ride I was just mad in general. Mad at my body for being sore, at other riders that I'd decided were annoying, at the course for so many wrong turns, at the course for not being over yet and at myself for taking longer than I'd wanted to. I hadn't brought enough chamois cream with me either, which certainly didn't help my mood. When I finally got done riding I had a one hour run scheduled; I had to call Sarah and ask her to tell me to go for a run (I could muster the motivation to call her and have her tell me, but I didn't have the motivation to tell myself, not sure why the two were any different). I got myself out for 35 minutes, but my shoulder was still hurting and I was feeling pretty dehydrated, so I stopped when I got back to my car. I was also only supposed to ride for 5:30 that day, so I think the extra hour of riding partially makes up for 25 minutes less of running.
Alright, now for the fun stuff: how training for an Ironman f's with your head and makes you constantly feel inadequate. Now, I could be the only person that feels this way, but I doubt it. From reading other people's blogs and stories, I'm guessing that most people who are attracted to Ironmen are exactly the kind of people who are prone to self-imposed pressure and guilt over minor transgressions in their diet or training plans. As I mentioned above, I was pretty mad at myself at the end of that long ride for my perceived "weaknesses" (right, cause everyone should be happy and comfortable at the end of 110 miles...). I had been enjoying the idea of burning 4000 calories that day, but since the course was so flat, I only burned 2400 on the ride, and since I cut my run short I only burned another 300. And yes, I mean only for all those numbers; I've been burning around 3000 calories in one workout for long enough that it no longer seems special. 4000 would have been worth some sort of "reward" to me, and since that was the expectation I had going into it, I was disappointed in myself for not actually doing it (even though I couldn't have realistically raised my heart rate enough during that ride to make it happen). Whenever I have a plan for a workout that doesn't end up happening (i.e. doing an hour on my trainer rather than riding up Emigration Canyon) I feel lazy and inadequate. If I sleep in much past 4:30, I feel like there's no point in going to the gym, because I won't have time for the full swim workout AND lifting weights. Even if I make the workout up later in the day, in my head I'm a failure for not sticking to the original plan.
The above paragraph was mostly written last Friday, when I had been feeling like a failure of a triathlete for a couple weeks. Today, after enjoying the long workouts this weekend, I'm feeling a lot more positive. I'm trying to avoid thinking about the evening's workouts during the day, this way I can evaluate how I feel when I get home and not stress about doing my ride on the trainer because I don't want to deal with traffic or route planning. I've also stopped keeping track of my calorie intake/output; I started doing this a couple weeks ago to make sure I was getting enough to eat, but I became a little obsessed with staying on the negative side of the equation. Peak weeks are exhausting enough without restricting how much I eat (especially because when I indulge these days, its on something like unsweetened applesauce with homemade, no-oil-added granola). So yeah, that's my plan to avoid burnout over the next few weeks. Only one week of long workouts left (century ride+1 hr run on Saturday and then just a 3 hour run on Sunday, no big deal...) and then tapering for race day!
Week 25 (16:45 total)
Monday: Rest, yay!
Tuesday: 1:00 run, 1:15 swim, weights and core
Wednesday: 45 minute ride with transition to 15 minute run
Thursday: 1:30 swim (2.3 miles!), 1:00 trainer ride
Friday: 1:05 swim, 0:30 run in morning, another 0:30 in the evening.
Saturday: 6:45 ride (first century ride! ended up doing 110 miles...) followed by a 0:35 run (all I could handle, more on all this later)
Sunday: 1:35 run
Week 26 (projected 14:30 total)
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 1:15 swim, 1:05 run
Wednesday: 1:00 bike
Thursday: 13 hour sleep
Friday: 0:50 swim, 0:30? bike ride (I didn't wear a watch, which felt weird)
Saturday: 2:30 run
Sunday: 1:30 bike (got caught in a rainstorm and then was too cold and chafed to continue. Should probably invest in a jacket...)
Monday: 5:15 bike followed by 1:00 run (4000 ft of climbing over 72.5 miles, and running afterwards was easier than Week 24's 5 hr bike/1hr run brick. Victory!!!)
So, first century ride: before that day my longest ride had been 77 miles, but I felt okay tackling 100 because the ride was fully supported and the course was really flat. It was pretty easy to miss the course markings, so I took a lot of wrong turns and ended up riding 110 miles total, I considered doing an extra 2 but by the end I didn't want to spend another second on my bike. There were aid stations with water, Gatorade and a good selection of food about every 20 miles. I tried to spend as little time stopped as possible to mimic the race, but around 67 miles I was really hungry for something other than gels (and for some reason I only brought one Bonk Breaker bar with me) so I hung out on the grass for a while and had a huge PB&J. About 1:30 into the ride my right shoulder started to really hurt, like someone was stabbing my shoulder blade, and it was even worse when I was on my aero bars. When I got home I saw an irritated bump and figured I'd been stung by a wasp. Since I didn't know this during the ride, I thought there was something wrong with my bike fit or that I'd swam too much or something. By the end of the ride I was really mad at my body for hurting so much when I didn't think it deserved to. Well, by the end of the ride I was just mad in general. Mad at my body for being sore, at other riders that I'd decided were annoying, at the course for so many wrong turns, at the course for not being over yet and at myself for taking longer than I'd wanted to. I hadn't brought enough chamois cream with me either, which certainly didn't help my mood. When I finally got done riding I had a one hour run scheduled; I had to call Sarah and ask her to tell me to go for a run (I could muster the motivation to call her and have her tell me, but I didn't have the motivation to tell myself, not sure why the two were any different). I got myself out for 35 minutes, but my shoulder was still hurting and I was feeling pretty dehydrated, so I stopped when I got back to my car. I was also only supposed to ride for 5:30 that day, so I think the extra hour of riding partially makes up for 25 minutes less of running.
Alright, now for the fun stuff: how training for an Ironman f's with your head and makes you constantly feel inadequate. Now, I could be the only person that feels this way, but I doubt it. From reading other people's blogs and stories, I'm guessing that most people who are attracted to Ironmen are exactly the kind of people who are prone to self-imposed pressure and guilt over minor transgressions in their diet or training plans. As I mentioned above, I was pretty mad at myself at the end of that long ride for my perceived "weaknesses" (right, cause everyone should be happy and comfortable at the end of 110 miles...). I had been enjoying the idea of burning 4000 calories that day, but since the course was so flat, I only burned 2400 on the ride, and since I cut my run short I only burned another 300. And yes, I mean only for all those numbers; I've been burning around 3000 calories in one workout for long enough that it no longer seems special. 4000 would have been worth some sort of "reward" to me, and since that was the expectation I had going into it, I was disappointed in myself for not actually doing it (even though I couldn't have realistically raised my heart rate enough during that ride to make it happen). Whenever I have a plan for a workout that doesn't end up happening (i.e. doing an hour on my trainer rather than riding up Emigration Canyon) I feel lazy and inadequate. If I sleep in much past 4:30, I feel like there's no point in going to the gym, because I won't have time for the full swim workout AND lifting weights. Even if I make the workout up later in the day, in my head I'm a failure for not sticking to the original plan.
The above paragraph was mostly written last Friday, when I had been feeling like a failure of a triathlete for a couple weeks. Today, after enjoying the long workouts this weekend, I'm feeling a lot more positive. I'm trying to avoid thinking about the evening's workouts during the day, this way I can evaluate how I feel when I get home and not stress about doing my ride on the trainer because I don't want to deal with traffic or route planning. I've also stopped keeping track of my calorie intake/output; I started doing this a couple weeks ago to make sure I was getting enough to eat, but I became a little obsessed with staying on the negative side of the equation. Peak weeks are exhausting enough without restricting how much I eat (especially because when I indulge these days, its on something like unsweetened applesauce with homemade, no-oil-added granola). So yeah, that's my plan to avoid burnout over the next few weeks. Only one week of long workouts left (century ride+1 hr run on Saturday and then just a 3 hour run on Sunday, no big deal...) and then tapering for race day!
Yo Liz,
ReplyDeleteOnly one more big week, so great! And truly, eat whatever and whenever the hell you want! Gotta enjoy that much-deserved perk! My $0.02.
Hope all is well!
Thanks Andrew! I've been enjoying reading your race reports, good luck at Boise next weekend! (beat Monte!)
DeleteThose are some workouts! As you're getting closer to the big day, have you learned anything new about training that would benefit others going for IM CDA?
ReplyDeleteI would say I've learned two rather conflicting things. One is to forgive myself for not being perfect rather than wasting time and energy worrying about missed workouts or eating too much. The other is to not over think things. There were plenty of mornings that I went back to sleep saying I'd do my workout later, and plenty of afternoons where I looked at the pool schedule and figured there wouldn't be a lane open and didn't even bother to try. The days where I just worked out without thinking about it were great, and I was always glad I did. I also learned to focus on whatever part of the workout was immediately in front of me. If I thought about how many more sets or hours I had left I'd get pretty discouraged, but when I thought about just making it to my next scheduled drink/gel time I was fine. I think that strategy will be really helpful for race day.
Delete