5/3-5/9 Weekly Totals...8 weeks out!

Monday - Holy Moly me and Izzie woke up and attended a 5AM TVM masters swim practice!! The morning crowd was definitely confused, as was I! Wheres the sun?!? It was nice to see the morning crowd, though, I don't know if they're worth a 4:45am wakeup call. ;) Ironically this ended up being my "best" swim workout all week, some hard 50's on :35 and 3500yds. Then at 8am, JoLynn (a former REI coworker) met me at my place. I was taking her up for her FIRST Mt. Diablo ascent!! She was a trooper and made it the whole way, with only a minor walk at the steep summit! Its a huge accomplishment of local rides and I was glad to watch her conquer it! :)
Heres the studette conquering the mtn!


Tuesday - Opps, didn't make it to 6am track. I blame it on 5am masters. But I did make it to the gym to do the same speed workout on the TM. The set was 4x1200, and I descended from like a 7:37 to a 7:20 (which of course is easier to reach on a TM). I stretched and lifted some weights while at the gym, but can only handle so much gym time so I had to get out of there! I headed to my "normal" TVM masters at 11:30am, much better...the sun is out, I can wear a two piece, and I can shoot the shit on the pool deck b/c its warm enough to procrastinate actually getting in! I'm glad it was an empty day and it was only me and Karin in our lane. Karin had just WON Wildflower Tri for her age group and was still recovering....and I just plain sucked it up at this practice. Our main set was 3x(1x300+1x200+1x100) and could barely hold 1:12's...ouch.

Wednesday - Long(ish) weekday ride with Margaret and Dana in Walnut Creek. We did a new road (to me) and had a ton of climbing for the day (I forgot my garmin, but I'm sure it was over 5k ft). I was feeling great, and Margaret and Dana "encouraged" me to go tear up the road....which I did. It was a great ride, beautiful day, and 60mi and back in time for a meeting and work.
The "new road" took us to the bay...

Thursday - Was meeting Mindy for a 9 mile tempo run. Hmm, my legs are feeling my "great" ride from yesterday. I haven't ran with Mindy since she ran her Napa Marathon so I was happy to run with her again, and knew she was now out of "racing" shape so thought it would be nice if it was a slightly "slower" tempo run. It was slightly slower, not that it really mattered...my legs are shot. But, I thought of the great mental training benefits of running with stumps for legs. What this day now needed was another crappy swim! Perfect! Headed down to the pool and put on the two piece (maybe priority was tanning not swimming??). We had more people today, and when Tim tried to make me go in front of him I warned him that I would be "JUST making the interval today.." Yeah right, he tells me. Until the first repeat and he says, "You weren't kidding, I'm going in front of you." Haha....thanks, I'll be back here floating guys, don't worry about me.

Friday - I'm tired. My legs are fried. BUT - TVM Spaniard stud Jaime wanted to ride with me and Izzie. Well, Izzie couldn't ride, so I went out with Jaime. He is a natural athlete and even without cycling and on a 1991 neon colored bike he could kick my butt! But, it was a fun ride. I got my 11th flat in Ironman training....I'm going to start thinking there are Flat Trolls out attacking my tires. We rode Del Valle, and it was nice to have Jaime push me up the climbs....aka me push it to try to keep him within 10ft of me. A good, fast 40 miles with some good climbing....and now off to tan...I mean recover...I mean float...I mean swim. Today, I was not fooling anyone, lane #1 had enough people to make a good lane and I would get in the way with how I "needed" to swim. I got in lane #2 and loved it. It was what I needed for the day. About 4000yds later....no more slacker swims for the week! :)

Saturday - Today had an 80+ mile bike ride on the menu. However, this week was a HARD week for Hubby. I barely saw him. He was working long hours for a show and then Saturday our church was having a garage sale. He had to work the sale, sell some old equipment, shoot a video, and my family would be there too (which meant he had son-in-law duties too). Needless to say, he needed me more than I needed to bike. I did not feel too guilty b/c I needed a recovery day, especially with what I knew was coming on Sunday. So, I helped hubby and my family all day, and I was happy to show that they are always a priority over IM.

Sunday - I had a 20 mile run planned. The past week several different training partners had expressed interest in running part of it with me. I made a 10 mile loop that I would do twice (figured good practice for CDA) and people could choose either to join on loop 1 or loop 2. It was a mild run with some rolling hills, nothing too drastic. Mindy and Alexia were going to be my loop 1 partners. Mindy had to bail Saturday night b/c she found out her kids had a Mothers Day early morning surprise....HAPPY MOMS DAY MINDY! (probably more fun than a 10 mile run anyways). So, me and Alexia start and we met up with ERNEST in about 1/2mile down the road, who got the emails but was out of town. So, the 3 of us IM CDA'rs start the loop. I like training with them. We set a good pace, we get rained on a bit. Neither of them are ready for 20 miles b/c of certain injuries etc but they both ran from their house, and I believe got in about 15 miles. Loop 2 was supposed to be with Dana and Bev, but they both had to bail also. I preferred not running alone (but prepared to do so), so I called my big bro Saturday night saying .... "Hey! You're running 10 miles with me on Mothers Day..." And he came out!! Now my big bro is athletic....he is a swimmer, rock climber, and skiier....not a runner. But straight off the couch he ran the 10 miles with me! We got dumped on by rain for most of the run, but it was warm rain and not windy so I was ok with it. The 20 miles felt GREAT! Well, as great as 20 miles on your body it can I'm guessing. It was a great run and great confidence builder for me. Loop 1 was avg hr: 165 bpm and avg pace: 8:54 and Loop 2 was avg hr: 167 bpm and avg pace: 9:02. So, overall my avg pace was 8:58min/mi! PERFECT! I enjoyed a good ice bath, a good hot shower, and then made my 2 salads for mothers day and enjoyed time with the fam!
Here is my "off-the-couch" rock climber, swimmer brother after our wet 10 miles...


Weekly Totals

time: 22 hrs 45 mins
ytd time: 538 hrs 45 mins

Swim
time: 5 hrs 30 mins
ytd time: 186 hrs 30 mins
distance: 13,700 yds
ytd distance: 819,700 yds (496 mi)

Bike
time: 9 hrs 55 mins
ytd time: 213 hrs 50 mins
distance: 124 mi
ytd distance: 3,064 mi

Run
time: 5 hrs 30 mins
ytd time: 102 hrs 30 mins
distance: 34 mi
ytd distance: 607.3 mi