Monday, February 27, 2017

Monday Musings: Birthday Week & A Sneak Peek

Hey hey hey, it's Mon-DAY and I cannot believe that we've been here for a MONTH already!  February has pretty much flown by.  Normally I'm not a big fan of February but I'm not gonna lie, I'm LOVING February this year.   We're really enjoying the weather, the people and the fact that we can hop on our bikes and ride right from our front door.  G said he thinks he could live here.  I'm not sure I could, as much as I love the warm weather, I know I'd miss the changing of the seasons.   Not to mention my family and friends.

Speaking of my family,  my amazing sister made it on local TV to talk about a project that she has been working on for the last year.   To say I'm proud would be an understatement.   And I realize that it's been a while since I've mentioned my dad.  His heart attack back in November was quite serious but he's finally in cardiac rehab and he's on the mend.  He's changed his diet and he's now allowed to play some badminton and he's in the gym lifting weights.   So things are moving in the right direction!

We didn't get up to much this weekend as G had to jet off to Paris for work so there were no tourist escapades this weekend.   He's gone for the entire week and won't be back until late this Saturday.   So, I'm going to play tourist without him.  But I won't be going solo.  Nope.  It's my birthday on Friday so a few of my girlfriends are flying in from Toronto for a long weekend and we're road tripping to Clearwater Beach.  WOOOHOOO!  Nothing like a beach weekend with your gal pals to celebrate another trip around the sun.   I can pretty much guarantee that the only thing that will get a work out will be my dancing shoes.   Dancing counts as cardio right?  Ha.

And in other BIG NEWS, I'm finally getting ready to launch my website!!!!  We're getting so close and I'm SUPER EXCITED.   For now,  you can check out my Facebook page and you can get a sneak preview of my logo there.  WHEEEEEEEEEEE!

Ok ok, that's enough squealing.   Let's get to how this last week of training went down shall we?

Monday:   57km bike + 5km run G and I met up with my friend Deirdre and her hubby Jonathan as well as our friends Ruth and Keith for some TT intervals, followed by a run off the bike.  We drove out to Silver Lake in Leesburg and proceeded to create perfect circles in Strava, ha ha.



We did a really good warm up (3 laps) then hammered one lap all out so Jonathan could get the Strava KOM (he AVERAGED 48.5 kph.  BEAST!).  Then we did a couple more easy laps and did a one lap TT.  Then another couple of easy laps and then a 3 lap TT.   Given that it's only February and I haven't really put in a lot of high intensity interval work on my TT bike just yet, I'm SUPER happy with how that all went down.  To see those speeds this early makes me happy.  My normalized power (NP) for this part of the workout was 192W and my 20 minute power average was 215W.   My average watts per kg for each lap of the 3 lap TT were, 3.70, 3.60 and 3.86 respectively.   I'm pretty pleased with that and hope to improve on that over the next few months.


By the time we finished riding it was 12:30 and it was scorching hot.  But I had said I wanted to do a brick so G and I laced up.  He took off like a shot.  I shuffled out of the parking lot, legs and knees hurting.   I wanted to stop.  I figured it would probably take about 1km before I felt ok.  Sure enough just past the 1km mark, everything stopped hurting and I got into a groove.  I caught G and proceeded to bang out a 23 minute 5km.  Not even remotely close to what I used to be able to run off the bike but, you've gotta start somewhere.  It wasn't pretty that's for sure but I was pleased with the effort.
Target acquired!  
Tuesday:  Swim 2377m + 60 minute strength workout.  I knew I was going to need some serious recovery time after that workout so I skipped the Centre Hill ride.  I swam and went to the gym with Dee.

Wednesday:  This was supposed to be a big ride day with Dee but Mother Nature decided to pour rain for most of the day so we didn't ride.  I figured I'd switch things around and run but I missed my window of opportunity to get out.  And I really wasn't feeling that great so nothing happened.

Thursday:  22.5km bike. I hardly slept on Wednesday night so I missed my morning swim.  I was still pretty sore from the gym on Tuesday so I had figured I'd do an easy ride vs. doing the Centre Hill ride.  I got up and ate breakfast but felt so crappy I went back to bed (thank you "Aunt Flo")  It was raining in the morning and then cleared up around lunch so I went out at that point.   Not the best idea, I still wasn't feeling awesome.  But at least I got outside.

Friday:   8km run.  I slept much better Thursday night and had big plans for Friday but we ended up cleaning the house in the morning, then going to see another rental place that we might book for next year.  By the time that was done it was just past 11 so G and I laced up our shoes and went out for a run.  It was 32 degrees celsius.  I was a big sweaty mess by the time we finished.  But I was glad we did something.


Saturday:  77.5km ride with the Cycling Hub group in some crazy dense fog.  We climbed Sugarloaf Mountain again this week.  My legs were definitely feeling these last few weeks of bike time.


Sunday:  76.9km ride with Epic Cycles + a 5.8km easy run off the bike.  I love that there are two different group rides we can choose from!   The Epic Cycles group is a big one. They have a race team so there were some very speedy guys leading the front of the pack.   But the point of this ride was to put in some base miles so it was a nice easy pace.

Swim:  2377m ( I really need to work on improving this, ha ha ha)

Bike:  234km

Run:  18km

Total time:  12h 13 minutes

This week will be a very nice scale back week.  I had a deep tissue massage yesterday and I'm actually quite sore so I will be taking to the pool today which means I should be able to get 3 swims in this week!  I will have a nice 3 day break from training which should have me rested and ready to tackle another big week.

How was your week of training?  It's been a while but I'm linking up with Tricia and Holly for their weekly wrap!  Head on over and check out some of the other posts!




"It's Monday, don't forget to be awesome!"

Coach PK  







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