The Accidental Ironweek

All this happened:

The recovery week after Ironman Raleigh I only worked out once a week.  Thanks to sunday's 1 mile long run the numbers didn't turn out that great.  I was actually headed out for my 10 mile capital loop on the run, when I dropped my water bottle about half a mile in.  It hit at just the right angle, so the top smashed into itself and all of the Heed ended up on the side of the road.  It's too bad, I was feeling pretty good for the first time all week and looking forward to reclaiming some dignity over the Ironman run course.

Totals for the week were 3.8 miles swimming, 65 miles on the bike, and 4 miles of running.  Added up to over 6 hours of workouts.

This week included the 3 little pigs sprint triathlon.  I got busy doing a few other things this week too, so it kind of got away from me.  Total was just over 2.5 miles of swimming, 34 miles on the bike, and 13.1 miles of running.  Pitiful, but the race was fantastic.  Total time was just over 4.5 hours of training.  Now that adds up to only about 11 hours of training over these two weeks. So what do you think happened this past week?

Finally a normal, solid week of Ironman training.  This was the first Ironweek I've had in a while.  Lisa came for a visit so all day Saturday was hanging out with her, pics to come.  So instead of a Saturday long ride I did an extra 25 mile ride on Friday morning and pushed off the rest day.  This stuff added up to 5200 m swimming, 115 miles on the bike, and 26.2 miles running.  Covering all of the Ironman distances (or more) in a week's time makes this an Ironweek.  I think Ironweeks should be a regular part of my ironman training, but my legs are starting to disagree.  Total time this week was almost 11 hours and 45 minutes.  10 to 12 hours are normal now, and that should be enough to let me climb into the 20 hour range for the build period.

This week in the training plan is when the weekday morning bike rides go from 20 to 25 miles.  During the build phase that starts July 20, they will go to 30 miles, so this is a landmark that I've been waiting to hit and dreading all at the same time.  Also this week I got my tuesday and wednesday evening workouts criss-crossed.  I don't like to same-sport it on back to back nights, running Monday and Tuesday, and swimming Wednesday and Thursday.  But we had a big tropical storm thing move through here on Tuesday night that cancelled the swim so I ran instead, and then I ended up skipping choir practice on Wednesday anyway so I swam instead.

I think I will be able to get my swim meters done now with only 2 swims a week as I will need that extra time on Saturday for the longer bike rides.  And now is when they start to really get longer.  By the build phase I need to be in shape for 80 to 100 miles each week. So muscular endurance has got to be there.  Swimming hard and long does wonders for your aerobic endurance, so 3 swims a week has been very helpful in keeping my heart rate down for longer periods of time while biking, but now is the right time to switch the focus.  Base build muscular endurance for cycling now will lead to faster bike rides in the build phase, and this should be the difference between a 7 hour bike split and a 5.5 hour bike split on race day.

For the Cast Iron Club update, this ironweek puts me at 25.55 iron swims, 16.1 iron bikes, and 13.65 marathons on the year. This is week 20 of the 38 week Ironman training plan, so I've got 18 weeks to go.  Looks like I'm setup to clear the 30 iron distances on the calendar year no problem.

It was sooooooo cool having Lisa come visit this weekend!  We don't get visitors very often and we really do enjoy having friends come stay for a  night or weekend.  This time we got to show off our really cool city to a really cool girl and we all had a lot of fun.  The highlights included getting to go play in the Rose Garden some, and letting the kids run around.

Smelling the roses always makes me miss my mother's roses.  They were beautiful this summer!

Kelley, Lisa and me watching the girls put on a play in the amphitheater

We mostly just hung out and talked, saw the sights, drank coffee, and played with the kids.  Kaileigh actually kept the kids at night while we went downtown for dinner at Natty Greene's, then hit the bars downtown for a while.

after dinner at Natty Greene's brewpub

I tried to get some other local friends to come out and drink with us but nobody could.  This is what happens when you are old and married and in Ironman training, you alienate everyone else.  However, we did still see the strangest thing I've ever seen in a bar before.  This one bar downtown that I wanted to go to was way too crowded.  So we stopped into another place that was less crowded.  It was really weird, just a bar with some benches on the wall opposite the bar (no tables).  At the very back of the bar was a pit bull chained up to a table (ok the only one), and on our way out there was an old black man who had fallen asleep with his hand in a bag of Cheetos.  I mean, he was the only one sitting on the benches but it was still pretty loud in there.  Too loud for me to fall asleep, that's for sure.  But the hand in the bag of Cheetos, that was really unexpected.  I wish I had been able to get a picture of that.

Lisa recently moved from Minneapolis to Charlotte, and is vivaciously exploring her new surroundings and trying to embrace the southern lifestyle.  We were proud to show her around Raleigh for the weekend and had a wonderful time.  The kids absolutely fell in love with her too.  It was great and I can't wait to get her back up here for a race!