Saturday, October 5, 2013

Ahhh, Great Build but Ready for Recovery Week!

Wow Ironman Cozumel is just 8 weeks away and Miami 70.3 just 3!  Crazy how fast time flies when you are having fun - and training like an crazy person Ironman!  This three week build session was amazing.  First of all, the weather was pretty darn amazing.  I did have a couple of windy and chilly rides but all of my long rides were deliciously warm!  And, I had company for all my long rides thanks to having not one but two riding partners who can ride mid-week!
Dushan and Duncan on our ride this week!
Duncan is also training for Ironman Cozumel and Dushan - well he became an Ironman in August at Mt. Tremblant and he just loves cycling so much he comes out for the fun of it all!  Like he captioned this photo from Thursday "Another beautiful day at the office".  So nice to get my longest training day done during the week so I don't take too much time away from the family on the weekends!

My body is taking this training so much easier than last year.  I keep waiting for the "Ironman Flu" to set in - you know, where every muscle in your body aches and you just want to sleep for a couple of days.  Last year at this time in training for IMFL I was definitely feeling it!  Now, it's not to say I'm not tired!  I am tucking myself into bed as soon as I get the kiddos to bed and sleeping as much as I can!

Besides slacking a bit on the swim side of things (I am getting to the pool twice a week), I have hit my training marks and I'm smashing my running times.  My Long Run this week was 25k at an average pace of 5:15min/km!  This is really giving me a lot of confidence in my run and making me dream big about goals at Cozumel.  I'm not ready to publicly discuss my goals - besides the first goal is to get to the start time, the second goal is to finish and the third goal is to go sub-12 hours .... but the real goal - I'll share that in about 6 or 7 weeks!

I've started planning out my recovery week and it's so nice to see the training hours drop from 17 hours to 7-8 hours!  My body, while feeling great, definitely needs this recovery week and I'll respect it and take it.  Because after this coming week I enter my final build for IMCOZ with a little half iron training race thrown in for good measures.  AND, I only have a few more long rides up here in the cold North and get to do my final long training ride and run in the Florida heat!  And when you start having big dreams and big goals - that's when training becomes vital!

So here's to a great recovery week and the added bonus of watching KONA next Saturday!

Happy Training!