Taper Time!?

Well, after a major case of the “I don’t wanna’s” last week…I survived. 

After my trip and fall on Thursday I felt like I’d been hit by a truck on Friday.  My entire upper body was stiff and sore.  Discomfort in my ribs (from where my heart rate monitor strap likely pushed into my body on impact) made it painful to cough and I was unable to sneeze.  A sharp intake of air was uncomfortable enough that it would stop a sneeze in its tracks.  Given all of that I opted not to swim that day as things just hurt too much.

I did survive our final 180K ride though!  The ride started out as a bit of a gong show.  We were planning on riding Highwood Pass, however more than one person told us we were crazy for attempting that route – with so much climbing – on an already hard day.  On Friday night we made the call to ride closer to Calgary instead.  We didn’t have a specific route in mind, just places to go.  We broke the ride up into chunks – a 50 km out and back to Springbank Airport, 30K out to Bragg Creek, another 10K out to Elbow Falls, return to Calgary and ride the 50 km out and back again.  This helped me to not focus on the entire distance and just think of the ride in smaller pieces.  It is the strongest mentally I have felt on a long ride so far this summer.

On Sunday I finally got that 4000 m swim in.  It actually went pretty well.  It was boring…but I survived.

And now we taper!!!!!  (If you can consider that a 14 hour training week versus a 16 hour training week is tapering….)

Saturday

On Saturday I was up at 6:30.  I vacuumed the bedroom, dusted the furniture and started in on laundry.  Then I packaged up my empty beverage containers and put them in the car.  After gathering my swim gear it was time to go.  First a stop in at the bottle depot to drop off the empties and get my $17.55 refund.  Then on to the pool for an 1800 m pull/paddle workout.  Out of the pool, shower, change and grab a quick lunch at Good Earth.  From there on to Costco.  Yes, I braved Costco on a Saturday afternoon.  After buying more salmon, asparagus, zucchini and red peppers than one girl would know what to do with it was time to head home.  In order to make room for the Costco groceries I had to clean out the fridge, then run off to the gas station to exchange my propane cylinder for the BBQ.  All before 5 pm.

Gee, with all this time to get stuff done do you think I might be tapering?

:)

Sometimes Smart, Sometimes Not

Sometimes Smart…

Angie prescribed a round of hill repeats for Sunday for me.  The initial thought was to run after volunteering at the race.  After Saturday’s ridonkulous brick run I knew that would be a bad idea.  So I was up super early on Sunday morning to knock out some hill repeats before heading to the finish line of the Calgary 70.3.  I had 4 x 3 min hills on the schedule and luckily there is a long enough hill in my neighbourhood to fit the bill.  It isn’t as intense a grade as the hill I usually run downtown, but it still provided a good workout.  The legs were a little tired, but it all went well.

Sometimes Not…

Sigh, I have a love for pretty shoes.  Sometimes those pretty shoes don’t love me though.  Typically I reserve them for just wearing around the office, but on Thursday I went on a bit of a hike.  A 10-15 min walk one way to meet a friend for lunch.  My feet were completely unhappy with me afterward.  Wanna see why?
Mirror images on both feet.  Hmmm, chances are good that they won’t be completely healed up by race day.  Luckily they don’t bother me while running.  Just while attempting to wear other pretty shoes.  (See the one inch scar above my ankle?  That’s from a shaving incident 10 years ago!!)

Bring On the Taper!

How is it that your brain and body just knows when you are two weeks out from a race?  All day my stomach has been sending me signals of “feed me”!!  Not to mention that I’ve been feeling pretty restless all day.  While I didn’t quite break last week’s training volume amount, I sure had a great week of running (19.85 mi) and biking (123.55 mi).  Unfortunately I missed a swim and a brick so I didn’t quite beat last week’s volume, but that’s okay!  Now bring on the taper…long run tomorrow…

Yikes!

It hasn’t really sunk in yet that my first HALF IRON distance triathlon is THIS WEEKEND!!  I know I can swim 2000m, that I can bike 90K (56 mi) and that I can run a half marathon.  The question is really putting it all together.  And then throwing nutrition in the mix.  This week I’ll be spending some quality time thinking about what I’ll be eating for breakfast, when I’ll be eating it, what I’m going to eat on the bike, and then what I’m going to carry on the run.  And how I’m going to carry all of it.

This week is also a short one at work.  July 1st is Canada Day and I plan to celebrate in style.  Friday we have the day off for the Stampede Parade, but I’ll be dropping Finlay off at the kennel and making my way up to Edmonton in the morning.

Workout wise…nothing too exciting to report.  Sunday I ran for 45 minutes with 6 x 1 min hard, 3 min easy.  I left my run until later in the day and it was hot!  Well…hot for here, and hot for me!  The intervals were nothing to write home about, but at least the heart rate got up there.  After that I was in the pool looking for a little 2000m redemption.  I hit my first 500m interval over a minute fast than last week’s, and my second 500m came in within 3 seconds of the first.  Unfortunately I was fighting a splitting headache and after 1200m I had to call it a day.  Today I worked hard on my taper by relaxing on the couch watching The Bachelorette and Merlin.  Gotta enjoy this laid back nights when I can!

Mind vs. Body

This taper thing is interesting. I know a lot of people tend to get antsy when their activity drops off right before a race. I think I may be the exact opposite. My mind is ready to call in to couch potato mode, and it is only when I get outside that my body remembers that it absolutely still loves the activity. Maybe watching all of those Olympians on TV is making me tired. Or else it has been the ridiculously bad sleeping habit I've developed this week. I've fallen asleep in front of the TV every night this week and haven't woken up until about 1:30 or 2:00 am to go upstairs and really go to bed. Maybe all of this is throwing me off. Anyhow, when I finally made it out of bed for my run yesterday morning it went pretty well. It is almost a bit hard to believe that my marathon is just over a week away.

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This morning I made it back to the Y for another 1250m in the pool. I was faster than Tuesday but I really lost my groove in lengths 41 - 49. It felt like such a struggle. Miraculously everything came back for the final length! Tonight is total body night at boot camp, then my parents and my grandmother should arrive in to town sometime thereafter. They will all be staying with me for a few days to help celebrate my adorable niece Avery's first birthday.

I also made some changes around here too. What do you think of the new picture at the top? I also updated my racing highlights to link to my race reports, and have a few extra pics from the race last weekend up on Flickr now. Also be sure to check out some of the folks I added to my favourite blogs list!

Falling off the taper wagon altogether

I'm pretty sure that taper does not equal do not run the entire week up to your race. But that's how it is starting to look in my world... I had fit ball on Monday, but we didn't run after class as Instructor S wanted us to go vote in the civic election. I didn't even do that either because I don't even know if I'm on the voter list in this town. I instead decided to go home and scarf down some leftovers from Avery's party on Saturday. Yesterday was way busy over lunch and I had a commitment in the evening so no running there. Today I decided that working on my property review presentation for my meeting tomorrow was more important than running. Tonight is yoga and we shall see if I decide to squeeze in a few miles after class. I know I can run Friday before heading to the airport, just not sure if I should attempt a Thursday run as well or not. What to do, what to do? If anyone has any advice I am all ears.