A look back
I was looking back at my training logs from before last year’s Duke half, and remembered that I did alot of long workouts up to 8 days prior. I was training for an Ironman race, and it turned out to give me a great half iron performance. With that in mind, I wanted to put in a solid weekend of training, sticking to the plan, but adding a swim and a little more bike miles.
OMG, turns out I was a weekend warrior last weekend, logging 122 miles!
Bike/Swim/Bike
On Saturday, I decided to ride my bike 22 miles to the lake, swim for 1:10, then ride 38 miles home. I didn’t intend for the way home to be so long, but I was avoiding the trafficy parts of town during the late afternoon.
Killer 3x Brick
On Sunday, I did Marty’s 3X brick, which I have dubbed the killer brick. 3X(15 miles bike, 3 miles run), each one harder than the last. That was the hard part! My goal paces were 18, 19, 20 mph for the bike sets, and 10, 9:30 and 9:00 m/m for the run.
I drove out to the White Oak end of the ATT tobacco trail for that, so the training could be on flatland. My planned bike route was 16 miles around Jordan Lake. I knew most of the roads, but had to add in a segment in unknown territory to get it up to 16 miles.
Lap 1
On my first lap, I made a wrong turn and ended up riding 22 miles! And that unknown territory was friggin hilly. I was trying to go steady, but not kill myself. I took a picture, and tweeted “Lap 1 done: 17.9mph bike, and 9:45 run. woot. ”
Lap 2
On the 2nd lap, I tried to go very very hard and get a 19mph bike pace. Did not happen. It felt like a headwind, especially on Martha’s Chapel which is a false flat up for 5 miles. That is the road where I tend to get dropped on those hard group rides at IOS. I remember thinking “Martha’s Chapel with a headwind, FML”.
I pushed hard in the run, too, but not balls to the wall. I had great mental focus and was able to hold onto a good pace. When I was done with lap #2, I had run out of my fuel mixture. So I grabbed whatever I had in my car, which was slimfast. haha!
I tweeted “ran out of perpeturm. hope slimfast works. rep 2 hurt. 18.3mph/9:20mm”
Lap 3
Off I went on lap #3. I went balls to the wall on the bike, trying to get it over 19mph. I actually got worse than lap number 2, but my quads were screaming at me. I was worried that last run was going to be a slog fest with my toasty legs. But I was determined to put in a good solid effort and beat my last run pace, and I did. I took a Gu Roctane before starting to run, and was able to hold up a solid pace. I
ran hard, but not balls to the wall. I was trying to think “run as fast as I can hold for 13 miles, half iron pace”. My legs ached, but I made them go fast anyway. I remember thinking of Tony Horton’s words from the P90X dvd during this run. Afterwards, I tweeted:
last 1 was visit to hurt cave. kept thinking ‘i no it hurts but so wut?’ #P90x”
That will be my mantra for the Halfmax.
Here is my training for the upcoming week. I am going to repeat Saturdays bike/swim/bike, but I am not going to do that killer 3X workout. My legs are too toasty now and need to rest up.
Two Weeks to go
Taper starts here can repeat prior week if feeling strong. Otherwise…
- Monday 20-Sep off
- Tuesday 21-Sep swim at lunch IOS ride, Trun
- Wednesday 22-Sep off
- Thursday 23-Sep swim at lunch 45 min pm run. 20/20/5(Z1,Z3,Z1)
- Friday 24-Sep off
- Saturday 25-Sep run 1.25 hours build to comfortable fast
- Sunday 26-Sep ride 2 hours with 30 min high zone 2 to z3
I know you do.
To tell you the truth, Ginger, I like to work out alone.
That is an incredibly tough workout – physically and mentally. There is NO WAY I would ever be able to do something like this alone. Maybe with a friend, but to push yourself like that solo takes an amazing amount of willpower!! Good On Ya Girl!