Bring on the Build!

There are 11 weeks left before Rev3 Cedar Point 140.6.  I've got 4 weeks in Build 1, 4 weeks in Build 2, a 2 week taper, and race week. That means that the build phase starts today! Bring it on.

Last week was a recovery week, and that wraps up the base phase. I took 4 weeks each for a base 1, 2, and 3 style with each one getting a little bit more focused on race intensity and distance. I played it pretty loose on the weekends since I had to go out of town so much. But I have been able to get in some long stuff. Sunday got an easy 16 mile run, and I did an hour and a half on the bike trainer Saturday. Last week I got 3.5 hours on the bike trainer.  So it's getting there. 

The overload principle I stuck with for most of the base phase had mixed success. It was nice to only have to take on a heavy bike load once every 4 weeks, but the effect of that is that I have no endurance on the bike right now. I didn't overload the bike weeks properly. I am still really digging lots of swimming and running right now, and yoga is going really well on the recovery weeks.

Friday morning was interesting. I took my first ever Ashtanga Yoga class. Turns out, there is an ashtanga teacher in Cary who is 500 hour certified and has been practicing for 18 years.  Last Tuesday night I was going through primary series and kept falling on my face, which was just as painful as it was embarrassing. I was trying to learn some of the hand balances and the next moves in Primary Series with no luck.  So I decided to seek professional help.  The class was a mysore style class, so students could arrive any time, and go through the sequence at their own pace with corrections and assistance from the instructor. I got there about 6 am, and she threw a bunch of form corrections at me. It was amazing. It takes about 5 years to learn the entire sequence, and now that I'm about 3 years into it I'm getting pretty far into the sequence. Into the tough meat of it. So the class on Friday went for about 2 hours and I got farther into the sequence than I ever got on my own. Backbends happened.  Backbends! ah yea. That was incredible.

Before lunchtime I was incredibly sore and could barely stand up.  How is it that I've been doing those same movements in almost the same sequence and suddenly I got sore? Well I was finally doing them correctly, for starters, and the class took 2 hours where I normally only practice for about 45 minutes. So that must have been it, but it was an unexpected twist to my weekend!

Later friday, of course, we went to Costco. I got Evil Genius pretty cracked up making funny faces, so I'll end with the pic that put her in stitches. 

Bottom lip down, tongue folded up to form the giant upper lip.

Also, I realized later that I was wearing the t-shirt from EG's Indian Princess camp a few months ago, and the hat that Ella gave me for Father's Day this year! That's a dad mode level up if I've ever seen one.