Week 17 & The Long Weekend

Going into this week my goal was to get in my Long Bike and Long Run in this weekend, which I was able to do. This week I was also able to bike at lunch and then one day I biked from work after work and back and drove back home. I've found that the only way to get my bike mileage in is to modify the time in which I work out, hence the bike rides starting at work. So far it's worked out great and hopefully I can continue this until B2B. The only thing I regret this week was not being able to get in more than 2 runs this week and a brick workout, but what are you going to do.

This past week was also the first time I decided to give Yoga a try. All I can say is that the poses you see on TV or at the gym that these people do look much easier then when I tried doing them. I never thought I'd say this, but it was a great way to stretch out and get in a workout. One of my limiters in triathlon is that I've very tight and very unflexible. I just wish that I had started yoga earlier in my training to help me out. I'll have to remember this for next year and the off season to keep loose.

Friday was an interesting workout day since I had to move my long swims indoors. Where I've been swimming at outside has turned to cold for me, even in a wetsuit. I tried swimming there last Friday and it took me about an hour to finally get warm again! I drove home from Stiles Pond last Friday with my heat cranked in my car absolutely freezing my butt off! So needless to say Friday's workout consisted of swimming 92 laps in the pool.....talk about monotonous and boring!

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post this Weekend's goal was to get in a Long Ride in on Saturday and then a Long Run on Sunday. This last long ride before B2B was another great way to try one more nutrition scheme for B2B. I ended up using 1 Hammer Perpetum Bottle, 1 Hammer Heed Drink, 2 Water Bottles, a few gels and 2 Power Bars. I ended up using everything, but the Hammer Perpetum bottle. I used about half of the Perpetum, but I found that when I used this last time that I didn't like the taste so I was a little worried about using it this time. Needless to say it still wasn't that bad, but I think this is something I won't end up using for B2B. I think my nutrition that I used on my last long ride will work, which was 2 water bottles, 2 bottles of Accelerade, and gels. I think the only thing I'll modify is bringing a Powerbar with me since I just get sick of the gels after about 50+ miles. Saturday's ride consisted of riding of 94.6 miles and it was a tough 94 miles. I only ended up averaging 18.8 mph, which took me 5 hours to complete. I think the reason it was so hard was that the nutrition plan I had tried didn't work that well for me on this go around. After the ride I was absolutely wiped out and hungry as hell! I just hope that come race day, I'll be fine and I won't get hungry.

This past Sunday was the first time I had ever run over 13.1 miles. That's right, even in training for my Half Marathon and Half Iron distance Triathlons, I only ran up to 10 or 11 miles in training. I ended up running 19.66 miles at a 7:44 per mile pace, which my dad said was still to fast. Even after stretching out and getting ready for the run, I wasn't sure how my legs were going to feel, but they were still a little tired and sore from the long bike ride the day before. Needless to say, the 7:44 per mile pace felt great up till about 10 or 11 miles in and then I found myself having to stop and walk 4-5 times on the way back. I didn't want to stop and walk that much so when I walked it wasn't for very long, maybe at the most a minute or so. With this being my only long run before B2B, it will definitely make the marathon interesting come race day.

All and all it was a great week, but a very tiring and long workout weekend. I'm still on the ropes about going into a 2 week or 3 week taper since this coming week is suppose to be another hard week followed by 2 weeks of tapering before B2B. Anyone have any thoughts / experience they want to share? Feel free to leave comments and thank you to everyone that has been following my blog.

Here are this Weeks totals:

• Swim - 10,164 yards
• Bike - 140.76 miles
• Run - 27.84 miles