Week Four

I have officially finished my first month of IMLP training. Woohoo!

Week four was heavy on the run, medium on the swimming, and light on the bike. (Only 3.5 paltry hours in the trainer.)

Swimming went okay. I did 6K, the most swimming I've done in a while. (Shut up.) I could REALLY feel it in my arms during the second session, which was PAINFUL.

Biking was nearly nonexistent. However, my next race IS a half-marathon and my coach feels bad giving me too much trainer time. I DID have a long, tough, interval session on Wednesday that fried my legs. I actually couldn't finish the intervals and had to end with an Oly effort ride.

Running has been AWESOME. I finished up the week with a 10 mile treadmill run with only :20 seconds/mile pace slower than goal race pace.

So, another good week of training under the belt. Woohoo!

Ugh

Ugh...I know, I know. I really DO want to document my journey to Ironman Lake Placid. And yet another two weeks have gone by.

I had my first recovery week of the season, which included my first Tim massage of the year. Heaven! (Well, it hurt, but in a good way!)

My run has REALLY been coming along. I'm still not QUITE back to where I was pre-injury. Over a YEAR AGO. But still - my long runs, while on a treadmill, have been looking really good. I actually see the POSSIBILITY of a PR at CowTown next month.

I've set a couple more PRs in swimming as well, which is cool.

On the downside, my already-slow bike is really Teh Suck right now. As in "I'd better LIVE in the saddle after the half-marathon if I went to make the bike cut-off" suck. Coach had me do an Epic Bike Block last year that really brought me along, and I am now the proud owner of a LeMonde trainer, so I know it'll come. I just wish I was progressing on the bike as much as I was in the swim and run. I have the feeling that that's going to be the discipline I'm always going to have to fight tooth and nail to see any progress in.

So that's where I'm at. I have all of this week's training done aside from Sunday's hard ten miler.

On a lighter note, I'm about to stuff one of that cats in the carrier for their vet appointment, so here's a funny cat video for your Friday Film. Maru, the Japanese cat with a box obsession.

Friday Film #15

This one's a no-brainer. Someone I follow on Twitter shared this video last night and I can tell I'm going to be obsessing about it for the next few weeks at least.


We Are Young ft. Janelle Monae

fun. | Myspace Video

It's bittersweet though - reminds me of that "The rest of your life ahead of you and anything is possible" feeling that you only have in your early twenties.

Week One. DONE.

Well, week one of IMLP training is in the bank. Scary and reassuring at the same time.

Swim: Only 2500 yards thanks to the gym boiler breaking mid-week. Did replace the missed swim with an easy spin. Still have my speed but my endurance is a little iffy right now. All in all not bad for this point in the season.

Bike: 5 hours on the trainer. Four of those hours were HARD. One-legged drills, Out of the saddle repeats, and hard intervals. No Z2 base building like last year. Need to work it hard though. My HIM bike time last year was over four hours. (Embarrassing!)

Run: 21 miles. Went pretty well. All my outdoor runs are slow with a high heart rate thanks to having to wear trail runners with YakTrax. They literally weigh almost a pound EACH. Not to mention that I'm running through slush, ice, and snow. STILL better than the treadmill, although I wasn't able to avoid it for Sunday's 10-milers. THAT was mind-numbing.

Strength Training: Not much - 2 15-minute core sessions. Went well though.

Total: 10:05 hours.

So there you have it. Week one all put away to be brought out on Race Day. Onto Week Two!

Friday Film #14

I haven't done a Friday Film in AGES, so here you go:



A Very Important Nerd PSA. LOL! (And yes, I'm a huge Big Bang Theory fan. BAZINGA!)

Raising Money

Although Ironman is definitely its own reward, I wanted some extra good to come out of it. To that end, I am raising money for the local animal shelter, Tri-Lakes Humane Society.

They are a great group who work hard to take care of the unwanted and neglected animals in the area, but like many shelters are on a shoestring budget.

My goal is to raise $1406, or $10 per mile. Please donate at my Firstgiving page here.

After all, how can you NOT want to help these faces? (And yes, these are pictures of actual animals currently available for adoption in the shelter.)

Thanks in advance for your generosity. Let's make this happen!

Day One of Ironman Training

Well, here we go. My training week starts on Mondays, so today was the start of IMLP training. Although the actual workout itself wasn't scary, it was scary because of what it's building up to.

The longest journey starts with a single step, or in this case, 1 hour of one-leg drills on the trainer followed by a 1.5 mile run. My first brick since the Lake George Tri on Labor Day.

When I looked outside and saw this,

I decided that I better add to my run clothing in "Transition."

I set up a stool to rest my right foot on:

And it was go time:

The actual session went well. My legs felt surprisingly fresh for not having run off the bike in MONTHS.

And with that, it's official. I am Ironman in Training. Let's do this!

2012

2012. When I said I'd do IMLP 2012 after watching it in 2009, I never imagined it would get here that quickly. I know it's still almost seven months away, but just being in the same calendar year as Ironman is frightening indeed.

So, I spent a lot of October and November with very minimal training - I'm pretty sure my bike on its trainer literally gathered dust. December saw a bit of increase, but it's still been pretty low-key. Add that to taking most of the month off from work in an attempt to use up all my vacation time, and you have one hot-to-trot triathlete.

2011 was a rebuilding of my run fitness and my confidence as I came back from a disastrous 2010 season that consisted of 2 HIM DNFs and a season-ending injury forcing a DNS of my last race of the year. I didn't set any speed records this year, especially at the beginning, but by the end of the season I had completed my first HIM, set a PR at the Mini-Tri, and worked my way up from "Straggler" to "Back of the Pack." (And seriously, it is SO much nicer to have company out there. I was all alone for pretty much all of Tinman.)

2012 will be all about Ironman, obviously, but I am also hoping to set another Mini-Tri PR, finally breaking that elusive 1:20 barrier and maybe even set a HIM or Oly PR. (Which shouldn't be too hard since I've only done one of each.) I'm also looking forward to my marathon debut in October. Mohawk-Hudson was such a beautiful (and FAST) course I want to see the full 24.2 this time.

So, onward with the New Year we go. As people return to work from the holidays, my training ramps up, and the days lengthen I am coming out of my slumber.

Next Stop: PR attempt at CowTown.