Cory and I have two races this weekend. It is our first time doubling up events on a weekend. I wouldn’t think this was a good idea but these Races are just fun ways to get our miles in. On Saturday we are running Greenland 25k trail race

They also offer a 8 mile and 50k. I have heard this is a great beginner ultra marathon since the trail isn’t too technical and there is a reasonable elevation change.

We have trained at Greenland before, last year when training for the Colorado Marathon we ran our longest training run of 22 miles there. It is a nice trail.

We do need to do some planning before heading down to this race as true to most trail races there is less support than you see in road races so we will have to carry our own water.

On Sunday we will be riding the Boco Loco century in Boulder. This also really isn’t a race, there is no official timing, you can start any time between 6:30am and 10:00am.

There are some other big races happening this weekend as well. It’s kinda sad that this year will be the last year of the full Ironman at St. George Utah. Ironman announced that next year they will drop to a 70.3.

 “We’ve listened to our athletes and they’ve told us that while they love St. George — the people, the community and surroundings — St. George does not work for them as a full-distance Ironman,” said Andrew Messick, Chief Executive Officer of Ironman. “Our belief is that St. George will flourish as a 70.3 and we are pleased that we are continuing our relationship with St. George and with the state of Utah.”

Story can be found here.  

One last race on my radar this weekend is the Colorado Marathon. This was my first marathon last year so it has a special place in my heart.

Also one of my employees is running it as her first so I am enjoying sharing in her excitement.

Anyone racing this weekend? Tell me about it!

I love a good challenge but I have been avoiding them since really focusing on ironman training. I just felt like I couldn’t focus on another thing. Run to the Finish has been hosting some really fun monthly challenges that I hope to participate in post ironman. But I have decided to participate in one challenge during the month that will be the biggest training block of the year. Seems silly I know but I have been slacking on updating my blog and I really want to capture what these weeks leading up to Ironman are like so I can look back and remember this time.

So I decided to sign up for the WordCount Blogathon challenge. It’s simple, the goal is to blog once a day for all of May, 31 days in a row. I love this, it’s simple and it encourages me to take more photos and post more and not push it off, day after day.

 
 I am excited and already have a list of things that I would like to post about to keep me going when I don’t feel inspired but it’s a far cry from 31 posts. Are there any topics you would like to read about?

Do you enjoy these types of challenges?

The weeks are quickly ticking by, I can’t believe that IMCDA is SOOOO close, just eight short weeks away! I am getting nervous but also looking forward to post ironman life.

Last week I thought I had a few more before peak training started but when coach sent updated schedules I was shocked to see peak starts TODAY! Yikes, this means that the next six weeks (with one recovery week in there) are peak training, then taper, then race day. All this means it’s focus time, now is the time to get really efficient with my time. My goal is to execute this training block well so I can go into taper knowing that I put in all the training and I am ready to go. I want to hit every workout as best I can , no skipping (unless injured, knock on wood) no excuses. There are also some fun events to look forward to in the next 6 weeks to keep me from going crazy, including a trail race, century ride, marathon, mother’s day run, olympic triathlon, and a metric ironman put on by coach.

Here is this weeks plan:

Monday: 30 minutes weights and 60 min yoga.

Tuesday: am 75 min spin class
pm- 10 mile track workout and hip/core exercises

Wednesday: am- 2800 m swim practice
pm- 60 min fartlek run plus hip and core exercises

Thursday: am- 32 mile bike ride outside(hopefully)
pm- 2850 m swim

Friday: 80 min pilates and hip/core exercises

Saturday: Greenland 25k trail race (plus an extra 4.5 miles for a total of 20 for the day)

 

Source

Sunday: Boco Loco – century (100 miles) bike festival

Source

Totals for the week:

Swim: 3.5 miles
Bike: 154 miles
Run: 36 miles
Strength: 4 hrs
Totals: 193. 5 miles and 24(ish) hours

This will be a personal record for miles and time training in a week for me, wish me luck! Two “races” in one weekend should be fun! I use quotes because I don’t plan on racing either of these events, they are just fun ways to get the miles in.

What does your week look like?

After running I was excited to be done with the recon work and do some touristy stuff. Since we were at Lake Mead we decided to drive over Hoover Damn, I would have liked to get out and see more but we couldn’t park the car in the garage with the bikes on top.

We did get a chance to walk out on the Pat Tillman Memorial bridge and get a great view of the damn that way.

We then headed back into town and grabbed lunch on the way. We dropped the bikes in our hotel room and took a quick nap before heading out to packet pick up.

Packet pick up was surprisingly small but made up for it by being quick. There was one small room where you picked up your numbers, chip and goody bag and a few tents outside trying to sell stuff. After we had our packets we stopped at Red Lobster for a carb-loaded dinner  before heading back to the hotel where luckily we got a good night’s sleep.

Race day info coming soon in a Race Recap…..

On Monday my brother had to make a horrible heart wrenching decision. He had to make the selfless choice to let the sweetest dog I have ever met go so he could end his suffering.

I knew that Ironman training would take a lot of time and be a lot of work. I guess I just didn’t wrap my head around how busy I would be. It’s weird to have no time for life’s normal activities. With exactly two months until race day, it’s time to put my head down and focus. I had really wanted to keep my blog updated often so I could document how this process is going but its difficult to find the time.

Cory and I got back from RAGE half ironman in Vegas yesterday, while the race was NOT a smashing success, I worked hard and finished the race in 100+ degree weather.

More information on the race later, but in short it was the hardest thing I have ever done, I am so glad that it wasn’t my first half ironman ever or I may never have done another one!

This week is about recovering and resetting for me so I am ready for the last two big blocks of training that are crucial to showing up on race day morning ready for ironman. We have three weeks of capacity building, three weeks of peak training and two weeks of taper and that’s it. It’s a bit scary that we are so close but also nice because there are parts of my life (like my sad yard) that could use my attention.


How do you reset and focus before a big event/race?

I am surprised at how sore I am after last weekend’s half marathon. It’s the kind of sore that makes it hard to sit down in chairs. I can make it about half way before my quads give out and I end up flopping down in the chair. I know that racing is harder on your body than training but this is still a bit of a shock after so many double digit runs this year.
I also blame my lack of preparation and recovery to my extreme soreness. So I present to you how not to prepare and recover from a race.

How not to prepare:

1. Plan your race for the day after a family funeral so you can have an emotionally taxing day, have a weird eating schedule and stand around in heels all day.

2. Don’t drink much water and have a whiskey toast the night before.

3. Stay the night far away from the race start so your alarm has to be set for 3:15 am the day of the race

4. Drive for 2 and a half hours before the race

5. Don’t research the race AT ALL before running so you have no pacing strategy

Then once you have so wisely prepared for the race go and push for that PR anyway, why not?!?!

How not to recover:

1. Have no plan for after the race, drink only a little water but hurry to your car so you can call your family and let them know you are still alive.

2. Think about buying a bag of ice to take an ice bath at the hotel but think it’s much wiser not to.

3. Don’t bring compression gear so obviously you can’t wear any.

4. Wait about five hours before refueling and include beer in that.

5. Wear heels around for most of the day to give your legs even more work to do

So now I have extra work to do to bring my legs back to life and avoid injury. I will use some of my favorite recovery tools:

1. Foam rolling twice a day

What are some of your favorite ways to recover?

Traveling will throw this week off a bit since I don’t return home until late tonight and probably won’t be ready to get up early tomorrow morning for our normal Tuesday swim. So to compensate I am going to try to get a swim in today before leaving Portland. But I can’t wait to get home and see this guy…..

Oh, and my husband.

Here is the plan for this week:

Monday: swim 2700 meters, this will be a good one for today since my legs are still sore from yesterday’s half marathon.

Tuesday: pm- 8-9 mile track workout and hip/core exercises, this might kill me if my legs haven’t recovered.

Wednesday: am- 80 min spin class
pm- 80 min pilates and hip/core exercises

Thursday: am- 2800 m swim
pm 90 min Fartlek run and hip/core exercises

Friday: am- 90 min spin
pm- 80 min strength training

Saturday: Bike focus brick 70 mile ride with a short transition to a 3 mile run

Sunday: 15 mile run, I am hoping for a trail run and at least 60 min strength training

That makes our totals for this week around 22 hours and 158 miles give or take a little. The time training is really starting to add up, now that it’s April its time to buckle down and focus! I knew that April and May would be the hardest months so now I just need to put in the work, no excuses!

What is the most time/distance you have ever trained in a week?

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It’s been a crazy week for me and my family. We unfortunately had a death in the family so we quickly made plans and flew out to Oregon for the funeral. The service was yesterday and while sad it was nice to see my extended family and remember Bill who was my grandmother’s cousin and my godfather.

Today I was signed up to run the Boulder backroads half marathon, the Decision to skip the race to go to the funeral was easy but I was really sad to miss the race. I love the Boulder Backroads half, it’s well run and a nice course. I emailed the race director to let them know that both my mother and I would not be able to race and they offered to transfer us to their fall race free of charge. I am so grateful and happy to get a chance to run in the fall.

Because I was still bummed about missing (another) race, I checked runningintheusa.com for races in Oregon. I was so excited to see that there was a half marathon scheduled for today in downtown Portland. So just a few days ago I signed up for Race for the Roses (fun fact: Portland is known as the city of roses)

Unfortunately this race has an early start at 7am and I was staying in Eugene the night before so I had a 2 hour commute this morning. With having to pack up, drive and check in before the race my alarm was set for 3:15 am. It’s not the best way to get yourself ready for a race but it was worth it to get to race a half marathon. After missing last months half I was determined not to miss out on another.

Even though I ran this all on my own and had to get up way too early I really enjoyed this race. It was nice weather, well run and Portland in the spring is just beautiful. They had nice tech shirts, roses and medals For every runner.

My only complaint was that the 10k walkers were finishing at the same time as I was finishing and many were walking 4-6 across. I don’t mind walkers but I wish more were mindful of the other racers trying to finish. My favorite part of the day was watching the people who were obviously finishing their first half marathon so full of joy and pride for what they had accomplished, it made me happy just to witness so many people reaching and exceeding their goals. As for me, I am happy to report a PR even after no so stellar race prep (travel, lack of sleep, poor nutrition, whiskey toasts, no taper, etc). My time (according to garmin) was 2:02:36, I am getting closer to beating that 2 hour mark, maybe next time….but that will have to wait until after ironman, I have bigger fish to fry before then, but more on that later.

What time would you get up in the morning for a race?

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I finally tackled Lefthand Canyon today. If you are from Colorado you have probably heard of Lefthand Canyon, it’s a fairly long steady climb. It was suggest by Coach Charley and seemed like a great challenge to take on.

It was a long climb and a long descent.

We rode through Ward which is this crazy little mountain town, I am bummed we don’t have any pictures of it. We aren’t very good at taking photos while riding.

Lucky for us the weather was nice and mild and the views were beautiful.

On the way down we passed Hall Ranch Trail where we like to run when we need to get in some hills.

It was a challenging climb and I would love to take it on again.

Do you have a favorite ride?