Training Brain (70.3 Wisconsin: Week 5)

This is your brain:

This is your brain on tri training:

Any questions?

I was just flat out dumb this week.  I almost left for the gym on Tuesday morning without a shirt.  On Thursday I got in my car to go to work and had to go back in the house to get my coffee because I left it sitting on the counter.  On Saturday morning, I threw on my gym clothes and realized (fortunately before I walked out the door) that I'd forgotten to put on a sports bra.  See? Dumb.

The training volume definitely ramped up this week. The runs and swims got longer and then there was the bike.  Holy hell...that was a lot of time on the bike this week (over 4 hours).

I really enjoyed Tuesday night's semi-private coaching session.  Mr. R&R's trainer met us at the pool to analyze our swim strokes and offer some suggestions on what each of us needed to work on.  According to his trainer, I need to work on rotating more on my right side, reaching for the corners of my lane (because my right arm likes to crossover the center), and making sure I keep my right elbow high since apparently every so often I like to windmill/flap my right arm.  All those things, once corrected, took 20 seconds off my 100 yard pace!  It's going to be interesting to work on putting all those things into practice.  Perhaps it will alleviate the boredom of staring at the bottom of the pool!

Week 5 Totals:

Swim:  3,450 yards (1.96 mi)
Bike:   50.70 miles
Run:    14.50 miles
Total Time:  8 hours, 9 minutes
Total Distance: 67.16 miles

Rest & Recover (70.3 Wisconsin Week 4)

If I learned anything from my first time through half ironman training, I learned how important rest and recovery are.  Every fourth week of my training plan is billed as a 'Recovery Week' and unlike last time, I'm took it very seriously and actually dialed back the activity level a lot.  I definitely took advantage of New Year's Day being on a Monday.  9+ hours of sleep, lots of laying around with the bunnies, and generally doing nothing productive!

I also think that this week couldn't have come at a better time since Mr. R&R and I had some family obligations this weekend that would have been very difficult to make work had there been a full week of training on the calendar.  That said, I'm very happy that the holiday season is finally over for us.  It's been great seeing family, but it's also difficult trying to accommodate these events.  I'm not even going to talk about the food.  I think it's sufficient to say that I look forward to getting back to my normal eating habits/schedule.

The coming weeks of the training plan have a big increase in volume as we move through the second half of the 8 week base phase, so getting back to our regularly scheduled lives will be very important.


How was your holiday season?  Do you have multiple events to attend or do you keep it more low key?