Another Fantastic Update

Here is the update on this week of training.

After last Saturday's hard workout, my legs were definitely feeling tender, which made my 3 hr ride on Sunday pretty painful. Actually, the ride itself felt nice and easy, but whenever I hit a slight uphill my legs were useless! I actually checked my rear brake a few times to make sure it wasn't hitting the wheel! I threw in a few Observatory climbs during the workout to spruce things up, and when it was all said and done, I had knocked off about 75km (with a few stops).

Monday was definitely a feel-good day. I jumped in with the UVic tri club after class and had a great workout. We were doing longer intervals that were intended to get us ready for the UBC triathlon this weekend. For the workout we had to jump in the pool every 5 seconds and swim up and down all the lanes (true UBC style). I swam in second position and felt amazing. I tried not to push the gal in front of me, but could have easily passed her if I wanted. We ended up doing the 200's in around 2:48, which felt very comfortable for me. It definitely was a change from the last time I swam with this group, which was about 3 weeks ago. I think others noticed my sudden improvement as well. Finished doing some other stuff and racked up about 3.2k that day.

Tuesday was a hard spin workout, in which I decided to go to the Lifesport workout for once. It was amazing! Too bad it is on the same day as the PIH workout, or I would be there all the time! Workout out on the pool deck was crazy! I must have lost about 3 litres of water I was sweating so hard! The workout was all about high cadence and I thought I was going to bounce off my seat!

Weds was a massive workout in the pool! The main set was 1 x 600 with 1' rest, followed by 6 x 100 HARD with 10 seconds rest, followed by an easier 4 x 50. We did that again as 1 x 400 then 4 x 100HARD, and 1 x 200 and 2 x 100 HARD, all with 4 x 50's to recover. About a 3k main set! I held my pace all the way through, and it felt wonderful. I pushed really hard at the end and fished my last hard 100 in 1:25, which I will definitely take with arms like jelly! I had the funniest character in my lane, who was swimming's equivalent of a sandbagger in golf! The guy swam so slow for the first 2.5 km of the MS, (including throwing some backstroke in there, as well as missing entire intervals!), and then in the last 2 x 100m he comes alive and starts to challenge us for the lead in the lane! It was so funny! The best part was when we finished the workout he has the gall to ask us if we slowed down near the end! Then he goes on to tell us that we must have gone out to hard!! I dunno, but last time I checked you should be tired by the end of a workout, not fresh as a Daisey!!! And triathletes do not bust out backstroke during a MS of freestyle buddy, sorry!

Second workout for the day was a nice 15k run at a steady clip, which felt great (did anything not feel great this week).

The mileage has been decreased a bit this week (probably due to the race on Sun), but I feel like I'm getting more out of my workouts, since I'm not just slugging through them.

Next stop is the UBC triathlon on Sunday! Forecast is for snow!!! Can't wait.