This weekend I took my bike out for my longest ride to date.
Saturday was a scheduled group ride, which was cancelled due to rain and wet roads. I was ready to ride and it was only a light rain in PV. So I ended up taking a quick 1 hour ride, followed by a 90 min run. The run felt good and I'm pretty much recovered from my marathon the week before.
Sunday, an Ironteammate and I went out on a 3 hour ride through the "hills" of PV. Some portions had an 8% grade, but going downhill at 40 mph is an adrenaline rush and makes the uphill portions worthwhile. We covered 48 miles through hilly terrain. Not bad. My legs felt great, but my butt was sore. I don't know how my butt will survive being in the saddle for another 3 to 4 hours on race day.
Unfortunately, I never made it to the pool this weekend. I'll try to go out today after work. Running and Cycling are my strong points, and I can go out anytime for a run or bike workout. Swimming is another matter. It takes that extra effort to get to the pool. If any readers have advice for me on the swim workouts, I would like to hear them. How does one get motivated for swimming? How do you stay interested during those endless drills and repeated laps? I don't get the runner's high or the adrenaline rush I get with cycling. Usually its trying to avoid taking in too much pool water and trying to keep a mental note of what lap I'm on. Real boring stuff.
My IronTeam swim coach provides great instruction during the coached swim workout on how to do the upcoming swim drills for the week. Each drill has a specific focus and purpose. I copy/paste my assigned on-your-own swim workouts onto index cards and put in ziploc bag to reference by the pool. During my workout, I time each workout with a $25 Nike water proof lap counter running watch that I bought at Costco.
ReplyDeleteAfter my workout, I get the data from my watch and on the back of index card, I right down the times & yardage that I completed for each specific focus.
This allows me to compare past workouts and see that I am really slowly improving in time as the weeks go by, which is motivation enough for me that there is method to all this training madness.
The cheap Nike watch is great, because I find that when we have timed swims where we are suppose to count our laps, I lose place in my count, so I just push the button every 50 yards to count my laps. This also shows if I am consistent in my pace when I record and analyze.
Also, if you have anxiety like I did about open water swimming, don't be afraid or shy about telling your coaches! I let it be known and at my first open water swim, the Training Captain stuck with me and in my swim in the SF Bay, the Swim Coach stayed with me the whole 43 minutes.