Official Ironman Training! Woo Hoo

Alright -- I've let a little bit of time slip by me.

I'll just say that my pre-training ended successfully with my 100 mile Solvang Century Ride on March 14, 2009. I took my time this year and found the fun in riding again. It was freezing cold, but so beautifully green, I could almost transport myself (in my head) to the Scottish Highlands again. Gorgeous!!

Now, I thought that I had figured it out so that I would have the week after Solvang as a recovery week, and then I would start my official Ironman schedule on March 23. Well, that didn't happen. As I started writing my schedule (yes, can you believe it? This time around I wrote my own training schedule!), I realized that I had calculate incorrectly, and I actually had to start my official schedule on March 17, just 3 days after the big ride. I did it, though, and have successfully completed my first official week of training. Here's what it looked like:

Tuesday = I was supposed to do my long bike today, but my lower back was still pretty sore from Solvang, so I decided I could fit it in on Wednesday morning instead. Today, I did 1 hour of strength training, adaption A.

Wednesday = 55 min run in the morning. My tempo swim of 15oo yds in the afternoon. For those of you that don't know, the tempo swim is designed to make me work on my speed. So I'll do swim intervals with bursts of speed laps, followed by easier laps. It was challenging after the 55 min run in the morning.

Thursday = 45 minutes spinning intervals on my bike on my trainer, followed by 1 hr of strength training, adaption A. (I'll have a post explaining what exercises are part of each adaption.)

Friday = Long swim in the morning -- 2000 yds. (40 laps in a 25 meter pool, OR 80 lengths. I specify a lap as there and back, a length is swimming from one side to the other.)

Saturday = 30 minute run with the Team in Training team. It was another 4 minutes run, 1 minute walk situation -- which is what I've been practicing on my long runs as well. I think I may be using this method during the Ironman. We will see how I progress. In the evening, I did a yoga mini-workout that was focused on stretching for runners.

Sunday = My long bike was supposed to be 2 hours, 45 minutes. I met up with one of my participants after the ride, and helped her figure out her new bike, so I ended up riding for 3 hours, 10 minutes. This was a hard ride -- partially because I was alone for the first 2 hrs, 40 minutes, but also because it was crazy windy at Griffith Park. I find riding against the wind more exhausting than climbing a mountain. The ride also included 2 climbs, the first much longer than the second. I do have to say that I noticed it was much easier than the last time I climbed to Mt. Hollywood. I'm going to say that's because of Solvang. :)

So that was my first week. Mondays are my day off, so I'm reveling in my rest today.