Maybe (?) Ironman Training: 100 days out

I bought myself a fancy pen and paper training log this year to help me plan and organize my #Ironman2020 campaign. It actually seems really stupid that this was the ONE year I actually purchased a log, because as we all know, nothing in 2020 has gone as planned. Several months ago, I went into my log and counted backwards from 9/13/20, to 100 days out from Ironman Wisconsin. That 100 days out day was last Friday. Currently, there is only one race on my calendar that has NOT yet been cancelled, and that race is Ironman Wisconsin. Now, for the past month or so, I've started vaguely shifting to a more triathlon-oriented training format while basically reminding myself that the race probably is not going to happen. I mean, can you imagine a race with thousands of people occurring14 weeks from now? It's hard to picture. But in the last couple of weeks I've tried to reorient myself and more think about it in terms of: but what if it does?

So, because one of my favorite things to do is read race reports and blogs of people who've been there before me, I'm adding myself to the choir of "Ironman training blogs". Sure, blogging like this is probably at least 5 years out of fashion, but hey! I figure if the race doesn't happen I'll at least have this to look back on as a grand experiment of what worked and what didn't. Apparently we should know 50 days out from the race if it's on or not, so that's almost 2 months to keep training as if the thing is going to happen. In the meantime, I have two nice built in process goals: build up to a century bike ride, and build up to a full Iron distance swim. Now, it should be said that I have no idea what I'm doing. I know pretty much nothing about bikes. I ride a road bike which is already a disadvantage, and I learned recently that there are aspects of my bike itself that are even more a disadvantage ("you only have 9 gears?" the bike repair guy asked, somewhat puzzled). I still need to learn to change a flat tire. I don't know anything about power meters or watts. But honestly, THAT is the thing that has drawn me to biking over these past few months: I know nothing about it other than how it feels and my perceived effort. I forgot how fun it was to remove data from the equation!  I also apparently am still running way too much and not biking enough. Maybe that will change as the weeks go on. But for now, this is what I'm doing, and I'm having fun doing it!

My general framework that I'm aiming for these days is 3 days biking (probably should be 4, but I'm clinging to my extra day of running right now), 2 days swimming, and 5 days biking. So obviously, some of those days need to be doubles. I'm still learning and working out how to best schedule everything around my normal 8:30-5 job and attempting to be a decent wife and participating in dinner once in awhile, and getting enough sleep, and on and on. So to be honest, last week wasn't amazing! But I learned from in and we continue onward.

Week of 6/1/20 (15 weeks out from theoretical Ironman)

Monday - 5 miles recovery after work (8:16). I did my longest bike ride ever on Sunday and my legs were TRASHED. I forgot how triathlon demands that recovery runs actually be recovery runs! It's almost like that makes sense lol. Sort of squeezed this in between work and cooking dinner and Zoom dance rehearsal and it didn't work out great.

Tuesday - Bike commute to/from work, 11 miles total. Total fail of a day. I had meant to run in the morning, then changed my mind and decided to run after work near the office (I've currently been going into the clinic 1x/week on Tuesdays). It should NOT have surprised me that I ended up working until after 6 and then had no desire or time to run afterward. Rode home, chalked the day up as a loss, and ended up continuing to do paperwork until almost 10 pm. Ugh.

Wednesday - Run, 6.2 miles moderate after work (7:49). Again, this was an example of what happens when I go off script and start messing with my plan. I had planned to bike, but then discovered it was Global Running Day + wanted to make up for the previous day's missed run, so I ran, and I felt AWFUL. Should have just stuck to the plan.

Thursday - Run, 7.1 miles easy-ish before work (8:01). Another pretty terrible run! I really think it took until almost the end of the week for me to recover from the weekend prior which featured a hilly long run and the previously mentioned long ride. It was also super muggy which has never been my jam.  The day was redeemed somewhat by a quality open water swim after work in Mystic Lake. 1.1 miles at a reasonable pace; I still don't know how to sight for shit and was too scared to swim the path I wanted because there were sailboats in the way, but it felt great! Also biked to/from the lake (7 miles total). Dealing with open water swimming without a car is sort of a production but it's the life I live.

Friday - Bike, 25.8 miles after work (16.5 mph). Tackled a hill that I accidentally ran up one time in the distant past and had sworn off ever since. It was just about as bad as I remembered! This 25 miler is kind of my standard short hills route; 1600 ft over 25 miles is nothing to scoff at. Pretty warm. I had planned to run either in the morning or after the bike and I did neither (not sticking to my plan was sort of a theme this week)

Saturday - Run, 12.1 miles (plus an extra mile later on, 8:01 pace) Turning over a new leaf in life, I got up BY MYSELF at 5:30 in the morning to drive to Concord to run. I actually got there TOO EARLY for the Walden parking lot which I found kind of ironic, but it worked out OK. Despite absolutely disgusting humidity with a dewpoint of 71 this was actually a pretty enjoyable run! I checked out a trail that I hadn't run in awhile and it was just great - packed dirt and pretty flat, with a side trip to a trail on a gorgeous marsh where I saw a muskrat AND a frog. I was definitely struggling with the humidity in the last couple of miles but I got some solid payoff - stopped at the car, grabbed my swim buoy, and ran up to Walden for the first non wetsuit OWS of the season. And let me tell you....diving into 70 degree water after a muggy run just might be the best thing EVER. The swim was super slow and leisurely but that was fine. Ran back to the car and got home just in time to return the Zipcar.

Sunday - Bike, 63 miles (16.8 mph, which seems to be my go-to bike pace). I was absolutely not feeling this ride in ANY way at the beginning and made some dumb errors that didn't help (dropping nutrition, navigational errors, overdressing). But somehow everything worked itself out and by hour 2 or 3 of the ride I was happy as could be. I still haven't quite figured out why I can manage to spend 4 hours on a bike without complaint and it feels like it goes by so quickly, but that's what's been happening lately. This was also a very hilly ride with some strategically placed hills that I hate so my legs were pretty donezo by the time I got home. Somehow still convinced myself to go out for a run off the bike (4 miles @ 7:34) which turned out to be my fastest and best feeling run of the week! Because my legs are idiots, apparently.

Totals: 4hours 52 minutes running (36.8 miles), 6 hrs 37 minutes biking (108.9 miles), 1 hr 11 minutes swimming (2 miles), 12 hours 32 minutes total training time.
Elevation: 1027 ft running, 4065 ft cycling

Lessons learned this week:
- STICK TO THE DAMN PLAN. Every missed workout or bad workout this week was directly related to me making a change or skipping something and then trying to work it in later.
-Related to the above, if you skip a workout, it's like keys in hot lava: it's gone, man. There's really no room to be "making up" workouts when there's barely enough time in the first place.
-Getting up early in the morning will help with A and B

Things to work on in the coming week:
-Do shit before work/in the morning
-Keep experimenting with gearing and fueling on the bike
-Don't get mad at your legs when they don't want to run fast. They are tired and that's not what you're training them for right now, after all :)