TRAINING, RACING, AND EATING ENOUGH CALORIES

Long Run to Burlington, ON Pier 

It's been a busy couple of months since the Niagara Barrelman 70.3. I've been juggling new job responsibilities with family and kids' commitments, taking care of the home and training for my first Ironman Triathlon.  

This Triathlon season we are working on my weaknesses (bike and run), and maintaining my strength, swimming.  It's been a struggle for me running 75-95km per week with the kilometres continuing to climb.  We are working on building power in my legs; to help with this I've added a strength training routine into the schedule 3X per week, provided to me by my husband, to be triathlon specific.  It's difficult for me to really see where I sit with training and if I'm improving when I feel tired from this new training schedule and keeping up with life commitments.  I'm one of those athletes that likes to race all year long.  I believe it's important for confidence, seeing if  bench marks are being hit, and most importantly, learning how to race. So I asked for some early races. 

Road To Hope: Last 6 km of the
21.1km was side by side with
this awesome girl.

My coach  listened to me, just as I listen to him, and we have done two races so far this fall training block.  Not triathlons, it's way to cold for this fair weather girl to swim in some Ontario lake after September. A running race and a swimming time trial are what has kept this girl happy and motivated.  Let me tell you why with two quick race recaps.

The Road to Hope Half Marathon is a fairly flat and good run course.  I haven't run an official Half-marathon, outside a triathlon, since I was 27 years old, and even then I only ran one and it wasn't fast.  My teammates from Tri-Hart were with me so that helped keep my nerves to a minimum.  We hadn't rested for the race, we had only taken one day off training, and we were going to do a long ride after the race!  The event started, I looked at my watch, and was running a little quick 3:45/km pace.  I wasn't so sure I'd be able to keep that up for more than 10km so I dropped it down a little.  For the entire race there was a young woman running with me.  Either she was in front or I was.  It was great!  We pushed each other through the entire race, ending up holding an average of 4:01/km pace, both beating our original goal times.  The race was also not 21.1km.  The consensus on all the Garmins coming over the line was 21.43km, that made our times seem that much better!  I ran a 1:24 half-marathon, placing 1st in my age category and 4th overall woman, in a running race!!!! There wasn't even a swim involved.  All those kilometres are really starting to pay off.

First 100m of the 1500m free time trial.
 I ended up winning the heat.

The second race was a swim race.  A 1500m swim time trial at the club I train with, The Golden Horseshoe Aquatic Club in Hamilton, ON.  It was at the end of the week, with a 23km run on the Friday and a 10km run and a bike workout on the Saturday before the Sunday race.  I averaged 1:14 per 100m pace, as my coach had said I would, and finished with 18:21.  Not bad for November and the increase in running and cycling I've been doing.  It  also feels as though I'm re-learning how to swim due to the new muscle mass I've been adding to my legs.  It's not so easy to keep the legs near the surface of the water anymore.  

First Dive off the block in 8 months!

Overall I'm super excited that all the work and juggling that I do each day is starting to really show up in my races! Now to deal with the other side effect of the Ironman training, weight loss. My current struggle is trying to eat enough calories to keep the weight on.  After the Road to Hope I dropped 4 pounds, after sitting in the same weight range for the last 2 years, that was a bit of a shocker.  I thought it was water loss, however it seems to be permanent.  So for now I'm working on filling my face with enough food to maintain this new number.  The Holiday Season should help with that.

Every day, in this sport, I'm provided with a new learning   about what I'm capable of handling,  and at the age of 41 I'm still figuring out where my athletic ceiling is.