Bye Bye Times

WEEKLY WORKOUTS
SWIMMING 3:30 (3 days)
BIKING 7 (3 days)
RUNNING 3:35 (2 days with 2 bricks)
WEIGHTS 1:15 (2 days)

This week I had an epiphany. Normally I'm so worried about my times & how fast or slow I am. I was in the pool and there was some crazy fast dude, with the best flip turns I've ever seen. By no means could I or would I try to keep up with him. It was @ that moment I realized it doesn't matter how fast I am, as long as I get the job done. Some people just have the gift of speed and I am not one of those people. Yes I want to do the best I can, but the only time that matters to me this year is 16:59:59 since the cutoff for Ironman is 17:00. Obviously I would like to finish my Ironman in less time then that, but as long as I hear "Pamela Wiener, you are an IRONMAN!" that's really all that matters. With that being said, not worrying about my times during training and even races I'm doing prior will be difficult for me. I'm a competitive person by nature, so this is going to be a difficult task, but I'm going to try my hardest not to. I was at an event this weekend where Rich Strauss, founder of Endurance Nation http://www.endurancenation.us/, spoke about Ironman racing. The one thing he kept coming back to is how people blow it on the bike and are so concerned about their splits, then get to the run and walk most of it. He told us that we should race the bike we should, not could. It totally makes sense. There's a marathon to run after a 2.4 mile swim and 112 mile bike. You need to have as much gas in the tank as possible.

I had some great swims this week. I did race distance on Wednesday. I definitely felt tired when I was done, especially since I had 7x25 sprints thrown in there. It was good to know I got it done and I still had a lot left in me afterwards. Friday I did 10x50 sprints. Now that kicked my ass, but in a good way. The swim is the least of my worries when I'm training. I just need to keep a positive outlook and convince myself that I don't have open water anxiety.

All I can say is holy hills for my bikes this week. Andrew had me do Kennesaw Mountain hill repeats. It's a 1.2 mile, 16% grade hill. I was supposed to do 4 of them, but only managed to do 3 1/4. It took me about 15 minutes to get up each time. I didn't care how long it took me, I was just happy when I reached the top. I ended up switching my ride and run this weekend. I had a 5 hour ride to do. I was hoping to get in 70 miles, but only managed a little over 65. I went out with my friend Mark and man did we do a hilly course. It was pretty challenging, but a great ride.

My runs were tough this week. Andrew said that it was my legs reminding me of Mt. Kennesaw. I had 6x.5 mile intervals on Thursday and by the end, I was walking after the intervals, which weren't super fast to begin with. Then Saturday I did a 12 mile run, with some decent hills and 6x10-12 second intervals as well. My legs were definitely feeling everything on Sunday. Nothing a good ice bath couldn't cure!