8/25/17
Workouts for the week:
Monday: Swim in the evening
Tuesday: Strength in the morning, run in the evening
Wednesday: Ride in the morning, swim at night
Thursday: Strength in the morning, run in the evening
Friday: Rest day
Saturday: Brick workout
Sunday: Long run, open water swim (!!!)
Well, this past weekend’s training was my peak and longest weekend of training – wooooo!!!! I needed to move things ahead one week based off of what our plan in Training Peaks said since I’m going to be going to Portugal for a wedding the week before Lake Placid.
For my brick workout, I rode to Rockland State Park with Howard and we did a loop in there before heading back – hooooo boy, it was challenging for sure, but in a good way. Gave me a really good confidence boost that I can totally tackle those hills in Lake Placid on race day [insert muscle arm emoji ;-)]. My run off the bike felt a bit more challenging than usual because it was so hot out, but otherwise felt strong. My long run on Sunday felt really good too. Since I knew it was going to be my last long run, I used it to really hone in on my pacing and practice my hydration and nutrition – and all went well! Another confidence boost for race day. (Side note: the salted watermelon w/ 2x sodium Clif shot blocks are SO GOOD. I normally like more citrus-y flavor nutrition, but these were great.)
I also had some really great breakthroughs in the pool this week. Something in my stroke changed, without me really consciously changing it, and I feel like it made me so much more efficient so I didn’t tire as quickly and could push myself a little harder. The first day it happened, I thought it was maybe just a fluke but then it happened again the second time I was in the pool. I tried analyzing what it was that I was/wasn’t doing, but I couldn’t really think of anything so to heck with it, hopefully it wasn’t just a two-time fluke. I’ll chalk it up to- all the training is paying off and showing.
I also went to Coney Island for a little open water swim on Sunday late afternoon. Nothing too long as I didn’t really have a lot of time – it was more so just for me to get some open water practice in. IT felt good and made me think back to the first open water swim clinic I attended with Empire and how much I’ve improved since then. I’m not saying I’m the world’s greatest/fastest open water swimmer, but I’ve learned that for me, I need to start off slow and get in a good rhythm with my breath – and as long as I can do that I’m good!
So, I guess this means it’s officially taper time for me – which is crazy to think about. It feels like when I started training way back in March, September seemed so far away; but here we are, just weeks out from race day. So now all my workouts will start getting less intense and be a little bit shorter. As they say, the hay is pretty much in the barn – now it’s all about keeping my mind as calm as possible and trusting all my training that it will get me to that finish line on September 10.
