Ironman 70.3 Training – Week 7 – January 7 – January 13 2019

The highlight of this week was swimming in the ocean in FL on Thursday.  This was my first open water swim.  I was nervous before as I didn’t know what to expect and especially since the ocean isn’t smooth like a lake.  I wasn’t sure how I would handle the waves and swells.  In the end, it actually went really well.  I did the swim with a couple co-workers and so it wasn’t my planned 2000m.  We ended up doing 1000 yds.  We are already planning another ocean swim when I’m back in FL.  I hope we can do 1500m the next time.

The disappointing workout of the week had to be the planned 2hr 15 min ride.  For that duration, I couldn’t fathom doing it indoors so I ventured outdoors in about 48F temperature and windy.  It did not go well.  I managed about 30 mins and called it a day.  I was numb!  I can’t wait for some nicer weather so I can ride long outdoors.

Unlike my previous weeks, I have two orange workouts.  The short ocean swim, which I don’t mind, and the abbreviated outdoor ride.

This coming week is a recovery week.

 

Ironman 70.3 Training – Week 6 – December 31 – January 6 2019

This ended up being a great week.  The most notable aspect is that while I had the same work load as last week (about 10.5 hrs), I didn’t feel as tired. My body is adapting to the work load.  For example, today’s run felt great.

The biggest milestone was doing a 2500m swim on Monday without stopping.

The biggest challenge was doing a couple runs in a some miserable weather earlier in the week.  Running in 34F and the rain was not fun!

 

Plan for Next Week:

This coming week is a travelling week.  This means a lot of indoor biking and swimming in a short (and cold) hotel pool in South Florida.  I am looking at an aquatic center that is close to the hotel so I will try and check them out.

Ironman 70.3 Training – Week 5 – December 24 – December 30 2018

The week started off great, but by Thursday, it ended up being rather tough.  For my swim on Thursday, I had to take a few short breaks which is unusual based on how I’ve been swimming recently.  I was just tired.  I hoped the rest day on Friday would have helped, but I was still tried on Saturday.

I managed to complete all my workouts based on the distances and times, but for my Saturday run, I did it as a normal aerobic run and didn’t do the 11×30 sec intervals.

In retrospect, I think there were a couple factors involved:

  • This was my biggest week ending at 10.5 hours of training
  • Since the pool I swim at was closed both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I had to rearrange my workouts.  I also moved cycling around to try and take advantage of the good weather.  I think this ended up pushing a lot of my harder workouts to the start of the week

 

Plan For Next Week:

I hope to minimize the workout reshuffling, but there will be a little as I try and get the linger bike ride done outside on the better day of the week.  In total though, this coming will be be a similar load to the week that just ended.  The biggest challenge will be swimming 2350m which will be longest swim by quite a bit.

 

First Ever Strava KOM

It was really windy on today’s ride and based on the wind direction, I decided to try for a Strava KOM.  There is a segment where I had the 6th fastest time before today.  With the wind today, I managed to grab my first ever Strava KOM!