9 weeks down, 15 weeks to go.
This past week we did our first really long workouts - 17mi long run and 85mi bike ride. As indicated in a previous post, it was also the week that gave me a dose of Ironman reality check. Up until last week, the workouts have been tough but nothing too much tougher than what I've endured during half ironman training (although I have consistently done a lot more running this time). But last week switched us into Ironman training gear, with the longest run and bike ride that I've done in a while. I've only ever done one bike ride over 70 miles (Shiner ride back in May) and the last time I ran 17 miles was back in December 2004! The only thing I didn't do last week was swim, which isn't such a big deal considering that I'm most comfortable in the swim. I got back in the pool this morning.
The long run was pretty tough. We did this on Friday after our bike trainer workout Thursday night. Fortunately the legs didn't feel too tired. The first 15.5 miles felt pretty decent, but the last 2.5 miles (we over achieved) was tough. I had to really stay focused to keep going and I have to admit that I took a couple of 30s walk breaks during the last mile, but I picked up the pace for the last 0.25mi so I think that makes up for it :) It had been raining off and on for the whole run and once I stopped it started bucketing down. Now I have a couple of long rainy runs under my belt, which is always a good thing to have.
The long ride on Saturday was surprisingly not too bad, for the first 75 miles. We biked a reasonably hilly course so that made it a bit tougher and my legs were already tired from running the day before. I paid more attention to my calorie intake and took in about 1700 calories for 5 hours on the bike (5:45 total ride time), not quite enough but getting close. I ran out of water for the last hour and so didn't eat anything which is probably a big part of the reason I got so tired in the last 45 minutes. I also wanted to pick up the cadence during the last 45 minutes but pedaling faster was hurting my butt on the saddle so it was a frustrating trade-off. But I didn't get a flat today, woo hoo! Others did, and we stopped and waited which made it really hard to get started again, but I figure if I stop and wait for someone then they'll return the favour some day if I need it!
Goal hours: 14.5
Actual hours: 12.9
Bike: 6.15hrs / 108 miles
Run: 6.75hrs/ 42.45 miles
Swim: 0hrs
4 comments:
I get tired, just reading your workouts!
; )
I dot, I really do!
Tut, tut... no swimming I see. Not slacking are we..?
Only joking of course :).
Mike
Yep, been slacking on the swim front ;) We have a hellish swim workout coming up on Jan 14th - as many sets of 10x100's that we can do in 3 hours. That ought to make me feel less guilty about not swimming last week!
It sounds so much better/ worse when described as the actual 100x100m workout that is the goal. Yup, 10km of swimming
I'm hoping to miss the whole thing :)
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