Tri Training - Week 2

by Rachel

This week my challenge was to squeeze in 2 additional hours of training for a total of 14.5 hours. This has been hard because I have never put this many hours into training - let me show you last year's training minutes graph (this is when I was using sparkpeople.com to track everything):

As you can see, my training hours never went above 10 hours/week. I never felt like I was scrambling to get in the hours - and I didn't necessarily have any specific weekly time or distance goals. So this year is different - I have no distance goals, or per-event time goals... just a big weekly hour total.

I started to feel it emotionally towards the end of the week - squeezing in extra time here and there, trying to work things out so I ended up covering my hours - it just got to me on Thursday and I had a mini-breakdown... the main points for me were that I was working so hard, and for what? Why am I even doing all of this? I'm sure there's been points along your journey where you've asked yourself this same question... I just got to the point where I couldn't emotionally handle it anymore and I think I probably cried for 1/2 hour - but then I finally got over it! Paul and I talked about it, and at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what anyone else believes or thinks, I am doing this all for me - to see what I can do when I put my mind to something - to show myself that I can do the things that I thought were not possible for me.

The other thing that became abundantly clear, is that I cannot lose myself in all this training - my life cannot revolve around this... If I do become so engrossed, obsessed, that I lose sight of the things which I find important (my husband, my kids, my relaxed vacay-life), then I am hindering myself - I will be working against myself and my own family. I need to find the balance this year - find that point where I still feel connected to the things around me, but still fit in as much training as possible.

I was able to get in 15 hours in week 2 - my plan calls for 16 hours in week 3. I will see how this goes - I may need to back off some. 

Monday

• bike to work 7 miles
• 50 mins ST
• bike to LJ Shores 
• TCSD Club Swim at LJ Shores

Adding a couple extra miles to my morning commute - I'm hoping that this will be the main thing to push me up from a 12 hr week to a 14.5 hr week.
I have been reading through a free online crosstraining workout for runners, and pulling workout ideas from it. Today's circuit workout was pulled from it, and I had fun with it - it was not too tough, but it really got my heart going.
Tonight's swim was a little rough - rough water! Paul helped me to realize that this weekly swim is going to be about me overcoming the rough waters - not being so concerned with how fast I'm going. My swims in calm waters will always be much faster than this - but this will give me stronger character! :)

Tuesday

• bike to work and back 13.2 miles
• hill run

It felt nice to get a good hill run in that didn't break me (last week's hill run had me stopping to gasp for air numerous times)...

Wednesday

• bike to work and back 9.6 miles
• Yoga
• mini-pool swim workout

I can see why you'll read articles where people are recommending lessons or swim classes every year - even if you already know how to swim. I spent last year working on a Total Immersion style of swimming, and felt like I got pretty smooth in the water (for not being super fast or taking any lessons). But this year, I felt like I lost it all! So I read up again on TI, and slowly remembered the things that I worked on last year. This pool workout was such a confirmation for me of the style and kick speed that I need to be doing - I felt like I got a lot out of this workout.

Thursday

• 30.1 long bike
• Track workout - run & ST
• 4m bike home

My arms were so tired today - I could really feel it in aero position during my long bike, and I was worried how it would affect my track workout - but I don't see that it affected it at all! I think I figured out, though, that the soreness is from lastnight's swim workout - which I'm actually really glad to realize - it means I actually "worked out" during my workout! :)

Friday

• bike to work and back 8 miles
• 5 mile tempo run

By the end of the day today, I realized I still needed 3 more hours of working out to make my goal of 14.5 hours for the week...

Saturday

• 8.5 mile bike to Lake Miramar
• 6 mile long run
• 22.5 mile bike to SDRI

Paul went up to the Laguna Mountains to run 30 miles of the SD100 course, with his friend that will be pacing him for that part of the course. They all met at SDRI to carpool there - and he just left the car there. I ended up biking up to Lake Miramar, running 6 miles with a friend who is training for her first 1/2 marathon, and then I biked down to SDRI. Our *almost* 15 yr old son was running his 2nd trail 1/2 marathon on Sunday, so the packet pickup was at SDRI - I got his race# & shirt, and picked up the car.

Sunday

• REST DAY!!
• Get up early and go cheer on my son at the Foxy Run 1/2 Marathon !

Week 2 (Base 1) Report

• Run - 18.9 miles (3.15 hrs)
• Bike - 108.5 miles (8.5 hrs)
• Swim - 1.68 miles (1.4 hrs)
• 2 ST, 1 Yoga (2 hrs)
• Total hours for the week: 15
• (goal was 14.5 hours for the week)