Ironman Louisville Training 2018 {week 16}

Gorgeous sunrise run. 

Weekly totals. I worked out 18 hours last week. 18 hours!!

Thoughts:

I’m tired, but tired in a good way. Little things make me cry- like seeing a lady brushing her old dog at the park near my office, seeing my friends crush their races, thinking about IM Lou and my upcoming races, and getting stupid emotional post run of the mill 6 mile run. Y tho? You know you’re almost done with IM training when....

Workouts went well this week. I was shocked to see the totals on Friday- I had already worked out a lot by that point and knew I had a huge weekend ahead of me. I just put my head down, woke up early (like always) and got everything done. 

I came to the conclusion that my mood is directly linked to how (I perceive) my workouts/training is going. When I feel I’m not doing enough, I get pretty down on myself. I feel like I’m wasting my time (and my family) and my money. Like why sign up for stuff if I’m not putting in the work!? But a few “bad” weeks over 20 weeks does not make a crap race. I need to remember that. I just hold myself to a level of work ethic- I can’t half ass things. It’s not in my blood. 

Stopping to sniff the flowers and everything. I love my big dog. 

Low lights:

I’m tired. I guess if I didn’t feel tired at this point of the training cycle, something would be wrong. 

I feel like I just don’t have enough time- between working out 18 hours, working 47 hours and life, I feel stretched thin. 

Feeling extremely nauseous post swim. Typically I have only gotten nauseous post open water swim (especially if the water was not calm). I’ll attribute this to swimming while dehydrated, too much caffeine and on empty stomach. I swam post 13 miler and didn’t eat anything (typical for me as I don’t like to run while full). I should have eaten a SiS bar before I ran to the pool. Upon the rec of a trusted athlete friend, I bought some ear plugs. I’d hate to feel the way I did post swim on race day in a few weeks. 

Highlights: 

Running with Ze a few times. He really seems to like running. He is really good at staying to the right side and not being erratic while on the path- a good quality when cyclists are zooming by at high speeds. 

A guy stopped to talk to us while we were taking pics. He said he recently lost his border collie who looked similar to Ze (we joked they all do look alike) and that seeing Ze made him happy. Ze has this effect on people. When I have time post IM, I’ll work on training him better and pursue therapy dog certification. 

Catching the sunrise while outside was also nice. While we were running literally every single person was taking photos of the sunrise one morning. Cue tears. 

I completed the virtual version of the Rapha Women’s 100k ride this weekend- and kept going to hit 100 miles on Zwift. I cycled on the trainer for 5:40! While the mileage is questionable (I’m not convinced I can go 100 at that pace) it was a solid 5 hour 40 minute effort. 

With week 1 of 3(?) of peak training in the books, I’m encouraged but also feel I’m spending a lot of time to be completely mediocre at 3 events on race day. Swimming aside*, I’ve been putting good work in on the bike and run and really hope this translates to a nice reduction in time come October 14. The Louisville course is “easier” than the crazy technical bike course and hilly run of IM Wisconsin. *re: the swim- I know I  won’t get better without a lot of coaching and time and consider that investment to not be worth it for a 10 min cut in time. 

Cuddling with my big dog while watching the replay of the Berlin marathon. He’s not usually very affectionate, but for an hour and a half he slept under a blanket on top of me. 

Looking forward:

I am excited more and more for October 14. I’m enjoying looking at restaurants and other places to see (bourbon distilleries) while in Louisville. 

I just need to lock down my nutrition plan for the bike. 

I need to figure out what to wear on the run portion. 

I’m excited for life post IM. 

27 days to go.