Week 39: Back at it

I can’t believe it’s been over a week since Ironman Lake Tahoe was cancelled. I’ve used the time to unpack my 5 thousand gear bags, but also get back into a somewhat regular training routine. My coach and I started to figure out how I need to change my training to adapt to the new course in Cozumel and also how my training will be structured in general over the next ~8 weeks.

This week I was definitely more sore and fatigued but that’s probably because my body has been resting and tapering for the last couple weeks. I think next week will be a lot better.

Getting Up

It almost seemed appropriate that I tripped and fell on my long run on Sunday afternoon. I actually kind of laughed about it as I was laying on the ground. All week I had been trying to make sense of the Ironman Lake Tahoe cancellation and what it all meant. But after I fell and got back up it became painfully obvious. This whole experience has all been about resiliency; picking yourself up and moving forward.

So when at mile 4 it looked like I had slid into home plate, scraped, bloody and obviously very dirty, I dusted myself off, made sure nothing was broken, and kept running another 8 miles. Just like the pain I felt when IMLT was cancelled and my dreams were (seemingly) shattered, I came up with a back-up plan and kept moving forward. It’s not easy but I’m happy I’m going through these experiences because it only makes me stronger and tougher in the long run.

Flat, Hot, and Windy

On Saturday morning I drove over to beautiful wine country to check out the Silverado Trail, one of the only flat and fast places to cycle around here. Ironman Cozumel is flat, hot, and windy which is basically the complete opposite of Ironman Lake Tahoe. So my new training routine has to take all of these factors into account.

The “trail” (it’s really just a straight road with a large bike lane) was absolutely perfect:

There is only 1 stop sign and the rest is completely uninterrupted
There are some rolling hills but it’s pretty darn flat (great for extended aerobar practice!)
It’s warm and windy which is great training
The mountain/vineyard scenery was insanely beautiful. Next time I’ll make a day of it and do some wine tasting afterwards!

I did this ride at a “Zone 3” (on a scale of 1-5) intensity which is faster than I would normally do a long weekend ride in, but this is probably a better use of time for the next few weeks leading up to Cozumel. I’ve already done the Zone 2, 100+ mile bike rides and aerobic work. Now it’s time to focus on strength and speed.

After the ride my legs were completely toast. There is no way I could sustain that pace for Ironman but these faster efforts definitely will make me stronger and more fit.

Aquatic Park Swim

Saturday morning I took my time to get down to AP for my open water swim. There was an Alcatraz-to-SF swim race going on and the athletes were finishing at Aquatic Park. So I watched some of them finish and even talked with a few of the swimmers afterwards.

That Alcatraz swim is no joke, so watching them come in just reminded me of my own crossings and how absolutely crazy that experience was. It’s easy to forget about past accomplishments because they come and go quickly so it was nice to have a reminder of how far I’ve come.

I jumped in the water with my pink IMLT swim cap and probably didn’t even need a wetsuit the water was so warm. I did a little warm-up and swam around the buoys for about 40 minutes. Nothing crazy, long, or fast, but it was the first time in a while that I had done an extended swim like that. Felt good but I was happy to be done.

Given that Cozumel is a salty, non-wetsuit swim I might try and go back to AP for a long swim without a wetsuit to see how that feels. Not really looking forward to that, but I think it would give me some good peace of mind for race day.