Workout Recap Week of 10/29! (Kinda Long)

Congratulations to NYC Marathon and Ironman Florida Finishers! Your hard work and dedication continues to inspire me. Special shout-outs to Shannon for nailing a 3:15 in NYC! Never have I been witness to someone working so hard and ignoring the raised eyebrows of doubt from others to just go out and kick some serious butt. I also need to give a serious "shake and bake" to my running partner Skud for busting a 3:27 NYC Marathon. Like me, she was using this as a "training run" for the Sunmart 50k. Someday, I want to breeze through a sub-3:30 marathon and consider it a "training run!" Several other Gazelles also had great races and should be incredibly proud.

While I didn't complete any official races this weekend, I did complete my first full week of OFFICIAL Ironman training. I packed a few more hours than I should, but most of it came in the form of my long run today and an extra swim class. God knows I can't get enough of those!

Here is a recap of the week:

Monday, 10/29:
I just woke up and did a quick jog up Exposition to 35th and back. This is a great training road for hills and it's also part of the Marathon course (not to mention that it's right outside the front door). I didn't have any real goals for this "recovery" run, but I did 16-something minutes towards 35th and did a conscious negative split on the way back for 14-something minutes.

I made my trimuphant return to Jack and Adams Corture class and it felt as if I had never been! Pushups were especially hard, but I was happy to be back. I can't believe how crowded this class has become. I showed up one minute late and was pretty much in the middle of the parking lot. The class is held right outside the door and has grown into an almost "cultish" existence. It's very inspiring that people like me actually show up for an hour of crunches, leg lifts, pushups, plank and other torturous moves.

Tuesday, 10/30
Went to 5:45am Swim Class and continued to try to reinvent my stroke with every arm movement. I get through the 2800m workout, but seem to be stuck with this mental block for now. My frustration with swimming continues...

Tuesday night rocked though as the gang headed out for some serious activity at the Peter Pan Mini-Golf in honor of Hava and Shawn's birthdays! I'm not sure a whole lot of calories were burned with my putting stroke, but a great time was had nonetheless. This mini-golf course is BYOB so it was pretty hilarious seeing a bunch of 30-somethings drinking out of a paper bag. Hava was a step above and enjoyed her wine straight from the bottle! Classy baby!!!

Wednesday, 10/31
It was another "first day of Gazelles" again since I hadn't been in weeks with any regularity. As always, it's great to see everyone and I received many wonderful comments about the Columbus Marathon. Wednesday's workout was 1200m repeats on the track with 2 min rest in between. Gilbert wanted everyone to do 6, but I stayed with 5 since I was still less than two weeks after a marathon. I ran with a very consistent group that included Frank, Brian, Denis and others who are now a blur and it went well. According to the McMillan Running Calculator, if my goal was a 3:20 marathon, I should be running 1200s between a 4:49-5:04. Aside from the warmup, I was right in there.

#1 5:13
#2 5:00
#3 4:57
#4 4:58
#4 4:58

On Wednesday evening, I got home from work and hopped on the bike trainer for an 1:00. I did 45 minutes of a Spinervals DVD and then just rode the last 15 minutes while watching the PBS special called "Marathon." It was an interesting documentary where they took 12 sedentary people and trained them to run Boston. It was pretty fascinating, but let's face it, you can't cover a whole lot in one hour. Definitely worth the viewing, especially from someone who also used to be sedentary herself. And now, I'm watching a show about running while I'm riding on my indoor trainer. sweet.

Thursday, 11/1
Went to T3 5:45am Swim class and witnessed one of the most beautiful sunrises ever. I'm also in love with my very warm and snuggly swim parka. That makes jumping into the outdoor pool so worth it!

I did my Bike ride on Wednesday because I actually played 9 holes of golf on Thursday evening with Shawn! We had a freaking blast and I actually didn't play that bad considering it's been about 4 years since I picked up my clubs.

Friday, 11/2
Went to T3 Core/Strength class in the morning which was pretty awesome. It's an hour of core work, as well as resistance band training for our upper body. My arms and shoulders were killing me on Saturday morning which just proves that I need the work!

I followed that class by immediately heading to Barton Springs for 1200 meters in the open water. It's always a mental challenge to hop in the water, but well worth it once you get going. I must've talked myself in and out of it a dozen times before I was finally able to beat the quiet voice, get the wetsuit on and hop in. I had a good swim so I left thrilled and had a great rest of the day!

Saturday, 11/3
For the 3rd year in a row, I rode in the Tour De Gruene 36 mile bike ride with Shawn and his Dad. We always have a good time on this ride, which becomes more of Father/Son bonding. I usually ride a little ahead while they catch up on the very thrilling conversations of cars, home improvements, etc. :-) The ride felt great and I picked it up considerably on the way back just to work on some pacing for a while. We didn't hang around Gruene too long because we had to get back to Austin to watch the Buckeyes slaughter Wisconsin!

Sunday, 11/2
Today was a mixture of ups and downs. I went to the 8am T3 Swim Class because I was coming off such a high from my Barton Springs swim. I knew I had felt what I supposed to feel when I swim. I could feel the resistance in my arms. Today, not so much. The balloon had popped (and my arms were still sore from Friday's strength class). This is no joke. At one point, Chrissie stopped me and said, "Do you realize it took you 38 strokes to get to the other side?" I'm not talking a full lap. I'm talking one length of the pool. I'm just not getting a catch and I'm working hard and spinning my wheels. From that moment on, we started completely over (for the millionth time it seems). The rest of the class had nothing to do with speed. I basically spent the rest of class doing the slow catch-up drill. My coach calls it the "TPR" drill...Touch-Pull-Roll. My recovery arm reaches over my head and touches my extended arm. That arm then begins the pull which then initiates my body roll. Immediately, I got my stroke count down to the mid 20s. I wasn't going faster, but I'm sure it wasn't that much slower either. She told me not to even look at my watch. Just count strokes. I put the paddles on...Got my stroke count down to 18-19 per length (down from 38). Later, we used the fins and I was down to 12-13 strokes per length. I know it's there and I can't wait to type with joy and gratitude that I'm knocking off consistent 2:00 100s. That's all I want to be able to say. And I will.

So, after that mental frustration, I wasn't really looking forward to my long run of 18-20 miles. It was a warm morning and I wasn't starting my run until 10:30am. Normally, I'm done and have binged on breakfast tacos by 10:30am and today I was just getting started. While it's not something I'm used to, I better get used to it since the Marathon portion of the Ironman will also be later in the day. Fortunately, my knight in shining armour came in the form of Thon today. The night before, he had sent a text and volunteered to run a portion of it with me. I had originally planned on running alone since I didn't want to subject anyone to the heat. He came through in such a generous way. It also became humorous because as our run progressed, he just kept bargaining with me. " I'll keep running with you, but if I have to stop, you promise that you just keep going." I wasn't going to turn that down! I was enjoying the company, conversation and the time was flying by. We ended up doing one of our favorites...Shoal Creek Trail to Shoal Creek Road...Cross over at Far West...Far West to Greystone and Back for a total of 17+ miles. Up hill out and down hill back. We were at a 9:15 on the way out and our final avg. pace was an 8:52. Nice, negative split. My original goal was to run 18-20, but it was getting really hot and we were both pretty dehydrated. I had only taken one gu so I was running on fumes. He gave me some endurox back at his house and it only took a second for me to just end the run with a very healthy and satisfying 17.2 miles. I definitely could've continued, but it would've been more harmful than helpful. Plus, I was curious to see NYC Marathon results!

So that's the week:

4 Swims
3 Runs
2 Bikes
2 Core/Strength

(1 18-hole round of mini-golf)
(1 9-hole round of real golf)

14.75 hours total