Thursday, March 8, 2012

6 days of training

While my training plan runs from Monday - Sunday I sort of like to look at the workouts from Saturday - Thursday as Friday is my rest day.  I know technically the rest day is part of the week of training followed my by two long days on Saturday and Sunday but since I'm not any where near seeing "long" on the weekends I look at my training ending with a day of rest then starting up again.

This past cycle was a bit challenging for me as my kids have come down with this 7 day flu making training a bit of a challenge.  Thanks to my dear Carole who has no problem sitting with my sick kids, I was able to complete all my training except for 2 weight lifting sessions. 

My numbers for this cycle are:

3 swims for a total of 3450meters
3 bike sessions for approximately 68 miles
3 runs for a total of 16.31 miles
1 weight session for 45 minutes

My body is definitely feeling the training and my appetite is certainly on the rise.

Up for the weekend after my day of rest is a 60minute run and a 60km bike ride plus weight session on Sunday if possible.  Next week is a "recover" week though my distances will be close to the same as this week.  I'm looking forward to going longer in the weeks to come!

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Rest Days and weekends

Yesterday (Friday) was my first full rest day since I started my official training.  I will often lift weights or do an easy spin on a rest day.  In the past, when training for half marathons, sprint and Oly tris and even when I was marathon training, I thought it was perfectly acceptable to do.  However, it doesn't seem to be the right thing to do now as I'm rounding out my first full week of training for my Half Iron and definitely not the right thing to do as I'm training for IMFL.  So Friday I blew off my typical morning at the gym spinning and lifting weights with my fellow gym rats.  I missed it for sure.  It was even a bit depressing.  This rest day thing is going to be a tough thing to get used to.  However, my legs were happy I did it!

Today my plan called for a 55 minute run.  The forecast was for winds gusting up to 100km/hr (60mph) and wet snow/rain.  My plan for Sunday calls for a 50km (approximately 1:45 on the trainer).   Today it's windy but tomorrow it's supposed to be COLD .... so I decided to HTFU and hit the streets.  And boy am I glad I did!  It was a tough hour run and only logged 6.5 miles.  I ran up to the upper beaches and ran criss cross the neighbourhood - a mile into the wind, a mile with the wind at my back, repeat.  It was quite a nice run actually.  I think a lot about IMFL when I'm training so as I was running into the wind I was imagining the wind coming off the Gulf and how I might have to run half of the marathon into the wind so HTFU!

Now to enjoy a quiet Saturday afternoon and evening - preparing for my longest trainer session ever tomorrow - oh and a trip to the Toronto International Bike Show tomorrow.  I'm on the hunt for comfy riding shorts!