WEEK 2 HALF IRONMAN TRAINING DONE

On schedule for this week:

• Monday--strength training;
• Tuesday--45 min. swim; 30 min. run. I swim 1 mile, which is around 42-43 min. and call it good enough; my run usually is slightly longer, so it evens out. Tuesday was also the first track day since December.
• Wednesday--cycle, 45 min. This is accomplished in one of 2 ways: either a spin class or 45 minutes on the trainer. Right now I am opting for the trainer because its just one less morning I have to leave the house before 6:30 am to go to the gym. Wednesday night is family night, so there is no working out at night. Thus, no outdoor bike (even if it were warm enough!).
• Thursday--45 minute run; 30 minute swim. This was again a wonderful run. Everything was clicking. I felt great. I wanted to keep going. But I held myself at 53 minutes, including walking. The swim was 3/4 of a mile, right around 32 minutes.
• Friday--1 hour cycle, 90 rpms, small chainring. Again, this is on the trainer for convenience and obvious reasons. Its a good way to catch up on shows I've DVRd that I would miss otherwise.
• Saturday--1:15 run; 45 min. swim. In past times, this would have been hard, especially after a night of a household of family members, a nice (if I do say so myself) dinner (pork tenderloin in burgundy wine sauce; garlic mashed potatoes; mushrooms in brown sauce; brocolli; salad; hot bread; too much wine; mint brownies). Somehow I managed to finally get up on Saturday, sleeping in until it was light out which is amazing in itself, getting breakfast for the hoard, and finally dragging myself out the door around 11:15, with just enough time to get the run in, fix something for lunch, head to the pool for my swim, and then pick up all the grandkiddies for a night at grandmas. I'd like to say the night was uneventful, but getting only 3.5-4 hours of sleep that night, tending to a 6 week old baby all night, a 9 year olds' temper tantrum at 11 pm, and then 2 other baby wakeup feedings in the night, I think I did okay. You never forgot how to be a mom.
• Sunday--2:30 hour bike. I again dragged Don out on this ride with me, thinking how lucky AGAIN I was getting to ride outside. The temperatures Saturday climbed to 57 degrees, with the promise of the same Sunday. However, that was not the case. When I woke up at 6:48 with a crying baby, it was cloudy and cold at about 38 degrees. The projected temperature was "mid-50s." Ha! If it reached 50, I would have been pleased. Instead, it was 47 when Don and I finally hit the trail, with 13-20 mph winds out of the east. Great for the ride out, with us averaging 15-16 mph, and me in the easy gears. The ride back, however, was directly into the wind, with a crosswind to boot, with me averaging--with hard work and gritting my teeth--of about 11.3 mph. I was jubiliant when I reached 12 or 13 mph, and I was also pretty glad when I finished that I hadn't talked Don into riding farther, because to have done that would have been that much more torture! The wind and cold were brutal. My nose is still raw from wiping it every couple of minutes on my gloves--2 pair fortunately--and yet I got sunburned and winburned at the same time. It was NOT pleasant the second half of the ride, but I pretty much blocked out the discomfort, numb toes, unrelenting wind and cold to finish the ride in 2:28 for a total of 30:62 miles. Again, nothing stellar, but like I said, the wind was brutal.

All in all, I was pleased with my accomplishments. Naturally, I worried and fretted the whole bike ride about my ability to do a half Ironman in early June, but I will say at this point in the year, this year I am twice ahead where I was last year; more than quadruple ahead what I was 2 years ago; and light years away from where I was 3 years ago, so I would say I am feeling confident.

Its early in the year. I have A LOT to accomplish yet.