The Best Word to Describe This Ironman Training Week Was…

Moist

Except that I hate that word (along with panty, ginormous, stoked and scrotum). So, maybe I could say this week has been soggy. Even that is an understatement. How about SOAKED? (In case you don’t watch the news, some of Colorado is under water experiencing our version of a 100 year flood).

Here is how this week panned out – I fell short of my 15.5 hour time goal due to logistics, closed roads, closed facilities and general moistness:

Monday: Rest day after my 70.3 race

Tuesday: Short bike ride with Coach Sharpie to work on technique. It was pouring rain. MOIST. We worked on hills and turning. My favorite quote from coach for the day: “When riding in aero position, point your anus to the back, like you are going to shit on the car behind you.” Priceless.

Wednesday: Swim 2,800 yards. Run 7 miles

As the week wore on and the sky continued to open up and spew rain upon Colorado, my workouts got a bit more challenging.

Thursday: 7.2 mile run – RAINY.

Friday: Was to be a long swim, but with all roads and pools closed, I just swam 5,000 yards in this.

Just kidding. Another favorite part of this day was that we smelled gas and had to have the gas people come out to make sure our house wasn’t going to explode. Turns out it was a sewage gas smell coming from all of the flooding on the golf course behind us. Reminds of me when Cousin Eddy’s sewage from his RV blew up in Christmas Vacation.

Saturday:

Thankfully the skies had cleared (at least for a few hours):

It is a good thing I am OCD about my training and HATE to miss a workout because this day was a freaking pain in the ass. It would have been very easy to not do it.

First of all, all pools in Longmont were closed. I had to drive 30 minutes to the YMCA. About 30 minutes into my swim, every screaming and hyper girl on the female swim team invaded the pool. I was out of there soon enough.

2,300 yard swim.

I grabbed some coffee on the way home, mentally gearing up for a 4 hour bike ride. I knew many roads would be closed due to flooding, so had no clue how this would go. Ken and I took one of our usual routes only to discover the bridge was totally washed away:

This is my best WTF-do-we-do-now? look.

We threw our bikes across the chasm and made a human bridge and kept going. Just kidding again. We turned around. We encountered two more road closures and wash outs before we decided to call it a day and head home. In total I rode for 3:50, or 66 miles.

I headed out for a 7 mile run and it was hot and I was tired and it kind of sucked but I did it.

Sunday:

Got up for an early morning 6 mile run. Nice and cool. Legs felt good.

Then I immediately headed out for a 2 hour bike ride. By this time it had started torrentially down pouring. The winds were crazy. I was freezing. About 40 minutes out, Ken said, “I think I’m done having fun for the day,” and we turned for home. Here I am looking like a drowned rat wearing science class goggles. Where’s the Bunsen burner?:

I had another hour run to do, but I got warm, took a nap and procrastinated. Finally at 4:30, the rain let up, so I headed out. Then of course it started pouring again. But I managed 6.2 more miles. Here is a professional video documenting the end of the run. I like how Ken didn’t turn off the video so it keeps recording stuff you won’t understand:

Totals:

Swim: 5,100 yards
Bike: 96 miles
Run: 33.3 miles

Total time: 13 hours, 25 minutes
Total miles: ~132
Total workouts: 10

This Ironman training is teaching me to be flexible and creative. When things don’t go as planned, you come up with a new plan. There are no excuses not to get in the work outs. It’s just a Shut Up and Train mentality. Get out there, suffer through, get it done. Meet your goal. Feel good (and moist).

 

What words/expressions do you hate? I also don’t like “That said…” and “At the end of the day” and “phone tag.” Oh, and for some reason, “Game on!” bugs me too.

Tell me about one less than ideal workout you’ve had this week (were you tired? was the weather sucky or moist? did you have bad gas? WHAT??)

SUAR

On a serious note: I want to say that although I appear to be making “light” of things, it’s not exactly the case – this has been a very tough time for our town and our state. We are doing what we can to help out others, to check on friends and to remain optimistic. Our thoughts go out to everyone affected – those displaced, those who have lost their homes or have tremendous clean up ahead of them, those worried about loved ones.