I may not have completed all the workouts, but I was able to complete almost all my planned volume for the week. I ended up getting 10 1/2 hours in for the week out of a planned 11 1/2. I thought it was a pretty good week. The breakthrough workout of the week was definitely the 4 hour ski. Yes, 4 hours! That's the longest I've ever exercised continuously for. And if you think about it, the bike portion of my ironman race will probably take at least 8 hours. I've got a long way to go, but it felt great to hit such a milestone.
The long skiing is, of course, helping me get ready for the 50k ski race I am doing. Update! The race has been shortened to 44k due to course changes caused by weather conditions.... I'm pretty disappointed about not doing a whole 50k, but I'm even more disappointed with the warm weather that's causing all the problems. I tried to do a good ski workout today since I've been out of town and not able to ski all week, and the conditions were super slow and soft. It felt like I was doing a lot more work and still going half as fast. I'm anxious about the weekend, I hope its not too bad. Well, the point of doing the long race was to experience the agony and guts it takes to push to the finish after it starts to hurt. I'm gonna get that alright, I just wish the point at which it starts to hurt didn't have to be within the first 5k...
Training for this 50k (ahem...44k) has got me thinking about how my plan is currently set up. I am not treating this race as an important race in my schedule. Because of this, I technically don't have a taper for this race. My race week volume (this week!) is at a little reduced volume compared to normal, but last week was a normal base 2 week. On the other hand, due to other stresses in my life (aka qualifying exams...) I did not get as much volume as the first week of base. Only 9.5 hours out of a planned 14. And since I'm on track for even less this week, I am starting to wonder if I am actually tapering for this race. This is both good and bad. If I start to taper for this race, I would potentially have a mini peak. This obviously helps my ski race, but it might hinder my future growth and development for this upcoming triathlon season. Now, this mini peak would certainly not ruin my triathlon season, or cause me to overtrain for my ironman. I just wonder how much it really would effect my peak for the ironman. In reality, this is a much better time to peak for a different race than a race in July or August. In the end, I am ok with doing a mini taper for this race. I guess I only bring it up to show you readers that what you do in the early part of your season, could come back to haunt you or help you in your later part of the season where most of your A races will be occurring. Just something to think about.
I'm going to close this post with a promise. I've been pretty bad about keeping you updated about my training. I started this blog with the intention of doing a weekly post so I could relate that weeks training. Not only to let you all know about my progress, but to also include any stories I might have to relate, and to also give you a glimpse at the type of training regimen that one takes to train for an ironman. So, I am promising to post every week from now on, even if its just a few sentences relating how things are going.
Cheers!
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