Eat More

I just finished my biggest week (16 hours 7 minutes) which consisted of 4.5 miles swimming, 168 miles biking, and 17 miles running and today I feel GREAT!

I worked Monday through Thursday last week since it was my standard Friday off. Perhaps this made it a little easier to get all my training in, but with sunset coming so much earlier, it’s getting more challenging to get time on the bike. This week I rode 1.5 hours on Tuesday, half of which had to be done on the trainer because it was dark. Wednesday I rode 2 hours after work before it got dark but didn’t get the full 2 hours 15 minutes my coach had scheduled for me. Friday morning though made up for that, more in a minute, but first…

I had a long swim on Thursday evening. A 4500 yard easy swim in the pool with 1000 warm-up of free, pulls, kicks, and drills. The main set which consisted of 12x150 pulls with 20s rest and 12x100 as 50 skull, 50 free with 15s rest. A cool down of 10x50 choice. It took me quite a while to do this work out since skulling takes forever! It’s good, don’t get me wrong. It’s helped me tremendously in developing a good feel for the water and keep high elbows. 600 yards of it though takes almost 20 minutes. Anyway, after getting out of the pool at 8:40pm and eating dinner I was off to bed so I could get up early for my long bike ride.

My long ride was up the coast. I had 4 hours 15 minutes scheduled followed by a 30 minute run. I started off feeling really good. I kept a comfortable pace and around 1:30 in, I inserted my first of two 15 minute intervals at the power my coach wanted. It felt a little harder than I had expected, but sometimes it just takes a little to settle in. I finished, and felt ok, but not really strong like I had wanted and am used to. I recovered for about 10 minutes and then set into my second 15 minute interval. It was also ok, but during my recovery from it, I wasn’t feeling recovered. I thought I just needed to add in some extra spin time and I would be fine. It was now about 2 hours 45 minutes in and I just wasn’t recovering. My stomach ached and overall my body just felt off. I was still almost 2 hours away from my start point. I was starting to think about who I could call to come pick me up. I was supposed to do 3 intervals, but skipped the third one for obvious reasons and just took it easy all the way back to my car. My 4 hr 15 min ride turned into 4 hour 30 minutes.

I thought for sure I would just collapse on the grass when I got back to the car, but it was time to run. I had stopped to pee sometime on the way back and was feeling a bit better, thankfully. So I set off for a 30 minute run. It went well! Much better than last week when I had ridden too hard and couldn’t run for even 15 minutes.

I pondered throughout the day on what went wrong. Why had my ride fallen apart so suddenly after 2.5 hours. What I finally realized was I just needed more food. After a long swim like the one the previous night, I need lots of calories to recover from that effort and move on to a long effort like a 4+ hour ride. It was yet another learning experience for me.

Becoming Speedy

Saturday I did the longest bike ride I have done since IMAZ last year. Actually, each week I do the longest ride since then as I am adding more time to my long ride every weekend. This weekend was a little different though.

I have been doing my long rides on Sunday while working on completing long runs since I’ve struggled with running so much this season, but alas the runs are becoming “easy” and now I’m back to the long Saturday rides typical of most triathletes’ training. This change brought about 1 change for me, lots of cyclist on the roads.

Cyclists seemed to be out in masses! But I was out alone on my 4 hour ride having a blast. The weather was perfect and with all the people, there was rarely a stretch of road that I was really alone. It was very similar to a race. You pass a few people, say hello, then keep up that strong steady pace.

The biggest difference for me with all the people on the road was how many of them I was passing and how very few were passing me. This was a GREAT feeling. I’ve been working so hard in my training and the results are clear and very exciting. I’m so used to being passed like a sitting duck over and over, all day long, by young people, old people, boys, girls…everybody! Today though, I was tearing up the road! With all the stop and go from lights and stop signs, etc, I still averaged a full 18.0 mph for 4 hours, covering 72 miles. The total elevation gain was ~2300 according to my Garmin.

I’m feeling really good about my training so far. I still have a ways to go (like 40 more miles), but that’s ok. I still have 10 weeks! Oh…and then I have to run…hummm. I guess I need to work on that part ; )

From the Shores to the Cove

I was standing there on the shoreline at La Jolla Shores looking out across the choppy water to the Cove. I had swam from the Cove out past the ¼ mile buoy, then to the half mile buoy, stopped and asked around for a buddy to swim longer. I found a willing body and we ventured off toward the Shores, about another half mile.

I stood there remembering the first time I had stood in that spot almost a year and a half ago. I had just moved to San Diego and had IMAZ looming a few weeks away. I knew I needed to be there, but the water was cold, a brisk 56ish degrees, and I really wasn’t excited to be freezing.

The swim leader announced there would be a group heading over to the Cove and I thought to myself, people don’t really swim ALL the way over there. They must just swim in that direction. Either way, I opted for the 500m-ish beginner swim and even that seemed like a lot to me on that day. It wasn’t the distance, it was the cold. Putting my face in the icy water for the first time literally took my breath away. I was so happy to finally have that swim behind me. I came back the next week and did it again and it was only slightly better. And that was it. That was my open water preparation for the April IMAZ race last year.

My how a year changes everything though. Most weeks I get a long open water swim in, usually 1.5-2 miles and this week was no different. I swam from the Cove to the Shores lifeguard shack and back. So now I know when people are standing on the beach at the Shores and say they are going to swim to the Cove, they really do, because now I do it. The added bonus is, it’s still warm enough to go without my wetsuit. How wonderful it is to be free!

Taking it off!

My wetsuit that is! Last Friday was the first time I had ever done an open water swim in the Pacific Ocean without my wetsuit. And I have to tell you…it was AWESOME! The water was so warm and it was just so nice being out there without neoprene hugging and restricting my every movement. My arms didn’t have to fight to propel myself through the water. It was simply magnificent.

I didn’t plan this by the way. I showed up a little late. People were already coming out of the water and I still have a 2 mile swim ahead of me. I was in a hurry to say the least! I grabbed my cap and goggles and headed down to the edge of the water. I stood there nervous about taking the plunge for the first time. I wondered if I had become too dependent on my floatation device (ie wetsuit).

Alas, a friend came out of the water and told me to go for it. So I waded in, put my head down and off I went. I stopped at the quarter and half mile buoys looking for swim buddies to join me for a longer distance. I found someone debating about going long, so I grabbed him up and off we went.

I had the best time swimming ever! And now, I’m excited to go back tomorrow and do it all over again!