Week 5 of 26

This is my first week under Coach Sheri Fraser's plan. It started with a swim session on Monday to recover from the Forest City half marathon the day before. The sets were 400m warm up, 400m - 75 swim/25 finger tip drag, 1000m, 4000m - 25 swim/25 right arm/25 swim/25 left arm, 1000m, 200m kickboard. Felt a bit tired and was swimming a bit slower than usual but that's okay.

It rained for most of the week, I was meant to ride on Tuesday but I swapped the ride for the next day's run session instead. Ran for 75 minutes in Springbank with some intervals - 4 minutes fast/1 minute easy/6 minutes fast/1 min easy/8 minutes fast/1 minute easy, and repeat one more time through. Was surprised how good my legs felt and clocked 17km in that duration.

Wednesday evening it was gloomy but it was dry when I started my ride. How wrong I was! It started raining few minutes in... and didn't stop! With the wind blowing, very soon it got too cold and I was shivering until I could not continue. Called Li-Ann to pick me up. Only 43kms clocked.

Thursday I did a shorter run at Springbank and my legs felt good again. Did a fast 13.8km in an hour. Friday was another swim set - 400m, 800m, 800m with pull buoy, 800m, 400m.

Saturday the roads were wet from the rain the night before. The skies were dark but the forecast says it should be clear of rain for a few hours. So I took the gamble and went out for a ride. Did 3 hours without getting too wet, apart from feet, from the water splashing off the ground. I saw a huge brown dog just meters away as I was riding in country roads. Later I thought, it could have been a coyote! The bike was very dirty after the ride and it took me a while to get it cleaned.

In the afternoon, I ran for 90 minutes and surprisingly felt great. Just over 20kms clocked despite it being so windy.

As I did not ride for most of the week, I pushed most of my cycling workouts to the weekend. So I was out riding again on Sunday. The plan was to ride for 4 hours. It was nice and sunny. But I had nothing left in my legs. It didn't help that the winds started picking up. I was rolling around at 20kph and I decided to call it quits and gave Li-Ann a call... again! 95km clocked in a very slow 3 hours 41 minutes.

I still had another swim session to make up for in the afternoon but I figured I needed the rest. Cramming two big rides in two days wasn't the wisest choice. And it is obvious my body is not ready to log in the big Ironman miles... not yet, anyway. Incidentally, I have a lighter load this coming week and the weather forecast looks favourable, so I wouldn't need to swap any sessions around.

Week 5 of 26 stats:

Swim 6.8km (1 hour 59 minutes)
Bike 228.8km (8 hours 23 minutes)
Run 51.1km (3 hours 45 minutes)

Total 286.7km (14 hours 7 minutes)