Week 6 Recap

This week was a little rough and I didn't quite meet all of my training goals. Two weeks left in base building. Lets see how it went.

I'm considering the swimming done considering I did an OWS on Sunday. So I got my two swims. I slacked on the cycling though, missing Wednesday and finishing early on Saturday

Best Workout of the Week
Saturday I attended an Open Water Swim (OWS) clinic put on by Headfirst Performance. It was a blast! The swim was out at Taylorsville lake, the site of next weekend's TriFest. Three local coaches ran things and gave a lot of helpful tips and tricks about the swim portion of the triathlon. Then we got in the water! The lake was a cool 68 degrees but the air temp was surprisingly warm. One of the directors went out Friday and set up buoy's so it was as close as you can get to a race setting. Despite some hang ups with my wet suit, the swim was great! I'm so glad I got to go down and see the TriFest setting in person in advance. I'm doing the Olympic there next weekend and I'm pretty nervous at this point. I felt relaxed in the water and was able to sight without much of an issue.

Coaches presenting before the swim

Afterward a group (reluctantly) invited me to ride with them. I'd intended to just head out to the Parklands and ride there but i'm really trying to get out of my comfort zone and push myself. They were super super fast and the hills didn't help. One of the coaches stayed back with me while the (mean) girls headed on. He was sweet to go so slow with me. We turned back a little early and, in the midst of the U-turn, I ate concrete. It's difficult to explain how depressing it was. In the middle of a  state highway on the pavement. I thought at first I may have sprained my wrist as it locked up entirely and I couldn't put pressure on it. Here I am, about 5 miles from my car, just...stuck.  In order my feelings were:

• Embarrassment. Omg. How the fuck did that happen? What a doofus!
• Defeat. This is never going to work. There is no way I can ride 10 feet, let alone 56 miles
• Anger. I wanted to throw my bike. I hated it. I wanted to throw it into traffic

We waited for a few minutes and I steeled up my nerves enough to ride again. It was hard to choke back all of those feelings and just keep going. I felt so utterly alone when I got back to the car. No safety net, so help. The drive back to Louisville was long, to say the least.

I sulked for the rest of the day. I still haven't gotten my bike out of my car. I knew this was going to be hard, but had no idea just how hard.

One from last week, one from this week

Went for my scheduled run today to try to shake yesterday off. It was much hotter than I'm used to and I got started pretty late so I was running right in the heat of the day. I focused on keeping my heart rate even and just tried to have fun. Now i'm focused on having a good recovery day.

Ice Bath after a hot 7 miles

Best Meal of the Week
Last Saturday the Pioneer Woman made a breakfast hash with a fried egg that looked amazing. I made it Sunday night for dinner and made the hash part again on Monday with a chili lime chicken burger from Trader Joe's. Yum! The Hubz was out of town so I ate a little bit more adventurously than I typically do. Paid off!

So there you have it, my week in a nutshell. I can't believe April is over and that in 68 days I will be a (Half) Ironman. Wow. I didn't realize until I looked it up how close it was.

April was pretty good though.

150.63 Total Miles

25:25:41 Total Hours

17, 706 Total Calories

And of course, Ellie dog is still awesome.

Happy Running!

How do you recover after a bad workout?
How was your April? Ready for May??