IM Hawaii 2015: Ten Weeks To Go

For some reason this race always makes me nervous  Add to it the turn around from Lake Placid, and I need to be careful last week and this I don’t get too aggressive, but don’t lose too much fitness. Tough cliffs to navigate between.

First week: Nothing except visit NYC until Saturday, when I swam 3 K, ran 5 miles, including 1 mi @ TP on the track. Sunday, I took my new road bike up 5200′ in 20 miles, from sea level to Hurricane Ridge in the Olympics. Road was closed to cars, with 100s of cyclists and a fun descent. I took a progressive approach, IM+ pace the first hour up, sub HIM pace the second hour, then HIM to HIM + the last 45 minutes. I have no power meter yet on the new bike, so this was by HR.

Second (this) week: I got a little too excited I think. On Monday, I couldn’t successfully finish the swim workout @ a descent pace, so I pulled the plug after 50 minutes. I ran 5.2 miles @ my LRP. Tuesday, I ran another 5.6 miles with 2 x 1 mi @ TP on the track. This may have been a mistake. That evening, we had our weekly social ride of 1-1.25 hours, which I usually hammer. This time, I worked fairly hard for 45 minutes, then rode easy another 30 with Cheryl. Wednesday was 1 hr 22 min on the TT bike, including 15 minutes @ 0.9, another 20 @ 0.8. I tried to follow that with a 40 minute brick, but could not run without pain in my right glue. 5 minutes did not work it out, so I limped back, and decided to shut down running fro 48 hrs to see what happened. Then, a subset of the Tues evening social riders went out to Mt St Helens for a 72 mile ride gaining maybe 6500′ overall. An absolutely stunning day rising through the forest into the blast zone, clear cloudless skies @ 65-75F. Probably the equivalent of a good 5 hour weekend ride (took 5:12, of which an hour so so was pure downhill coasting/soft pedaling) Then today, back in the pool for 3K, 1-2 sec/100 slower than I was doing two weeks before IMLP, followed by a test run on the track, 5k @ LRP with much less pain.

I see next week as getting myself into proper “training shape” so I can take advantage of the following 18 days in Colorado, where I will work at long climbs, long steady rides on the valley rail trail/roads, running frequency, and steady swimming with short intervals once a week. I’ll b e using the training plan as a guide, trying to hit all the workouts in some form or other. But the plan only has 3 bikes a week, and I will try and get 4 in, usually adding a second 3 hour “Sunday style” ride. I’m gonna split my long runs while I’m there, and work on increased run volume and frequency compared to what I did leading up to LP.

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