Kind of crazy, but the Los Cabos 70.3 is now 6.5 weeks
away! Ironman was always such a long
thing, signing up a year in advance and focused training for 6 months... So it’s
just kind of funny to be training for something so close!
Things have been...happening.
Overall, very much recovered so that’s good, and mostly just learning where I am
right now.
Swimming: Actually, pretty good! I’ve been slacking, I kind of let myself
start skipping occasionally, etc etc… and ironically, it seems to have
helped! (or maybe it’s a coincidence but
I’m going to go ahead and assume that the correlation indicates causation,
there ;) ). The last couple weeks, I’ve
been having, well, good swims! For me,
at least. Feeling good in the pool,
putting up faster 100s than ever before, pushing myself and forcing myself to stay
out of my comfort zone (and prove that I won't, in fact, die), even a couple good open water swims where I actually
swam strong(er) instad of just paddling around slowly trying to stay alive. So, I am cautiously optimistic that my swim
is actually improving a bit. Don’t get
me wrong, it’s still pretty dismal, but I’ve seeing average 1:50s for my entire
swim, or even 1:47, instead of 1:58 or over 2:00. I know I’ll swim slower in Cabo than in
training, but I’ll take any improvement I can get :) (Also makes me feel better about skipping
sometimes haha). Still hate it
though. Hate hate hate. Swimming is stupid.
Biking: BACK. I think
I can solidly say I have my bike legs back, and then some! Like I said before, after a pretty dismal CDA
bike time, I think I was left with something to prove. I really wanted to focus on getting stronger
on the bike for Cabo, so I’ve been trying to stay disciplined and riding strong
and really fulfilling the point of my workouts.
And it’s paying off. It takes a
bit more focus, I think, to keep myself accountable and to keep
pushing, but it’s worth it. It’s all
mental, and the other HUGE thing is that 56 miles is a big difference compared
to 112! I can hurt for 56 miles and come
off and run a half marathon, but I can’t hurt for 112 and then run a full
marathon ;) So, there’s that, and I
think knowing that has helped in training—instead of wanting to come off the
bike feeling fresh, I now want to come off the bike feeling like I gave it
everything I had. I don’t want to feel like I could go do it again
;) My coach has been giving me lots of bike time too, so that’s good. My climbing is getting back to pre-ironman ability,
and I’m TTing it a bit more too and sustaining slightly higher speeds. Still working on descents, although even that is improving a (very small) bit! Really
loving how strong I’m beginning to feel on the bike again :) Ok, enough bragging!
Running: …..meh. Hah,
ok, it’s not that bad. I’m definitely
back to my ironman-training running form, but just can’t quite find the speed I
want. I think I need to let go of my “old”
13.1 race pace and accept the fact that 6+ months of endurance training over
speed training has actually slowed me down.
:P Not to say I can’t get it
back, but I’m just not there right now and that’s ok!
Running long is still a little rough, but I know it’s slowly getting
better. 6 weeks and some change will at
least get me closer, even if I’m not quite as fast as I’d like to be on race day. The good news is that, being a half, I can
easily run the actual race distance every week in training (as opposed to the silly full). Somehow, that helps because I feel like I can
actually guage things. But it also makes
is harder because I ran a bit longer this weekend, and still averaged only
8:11. On the other hand I wasn’t really
pushing it and wasn’t racing. So there’s
that. Maybe I’m over-thinking it. (Me? Never.) Anyway, I need to focus on the positive, and
the positive is that I’m running again, my chest doesn’t always feel like it’s
going to explode (only when I try to sustain a 7:15 for more than 2 miles,
apparently, dangit, that was not a fun time), and I know I’ll finish the dang thing!
I’m getting pretty excited about this race, actually. I’ll actually race it, and push it, but it’s
longer than anything else like the Olympics I’ve done. It definitely has the potential to become my
new favorite race distance, I think, because I’m also loving the intense training
for it! Good mix of speed but a little
more endurance than shorter/"normal" stuff.
It’s also a big unknown and we all know that new things are my favorite
things EVER! More pre-race obsessiveness
regarding time, pace, etc will come but for now I’m trying to only look ahead a
week or two and focus on getting faster and stronger in every way I can.
In other, but related, news: I’m doing the Kirkland sprint
on the 20th! That was my
first tri ever 2 years ago, so it holds a special place in my heart. Plus, I just kind of love the course, even
though the swim is long for a sprint (0.5 mile?!), the bike is just a big dumb hill plus hilly neighborhoods (x2!), and the run is fine EXCEPT for the stupid-steep hill at the
turn-around. But I love it all the
same. Maybe because it’s in Juanita and
all so compact. I just love it :)
My mom was going to race too ,but I told her to try swimming
first to really see—and she decided to wait :( I’m sad, because I really got
excited about being on the course with her and seeing her, but at least she’s
super excited to start training and do some next year! And she'll be there to watch. So that’s cool.
Really looking forward to a short course, actually. They are so silly but sooo much fun. Getting that triathlon spark back and am excited to just go have a fun morning doing something a little different. I need to resign myself to the fact that I
may not be as fast this year, due to the aforementioned ironman endurance
issues :P but will still be fun to go go go go and kill myself for an hour + a
bit.
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